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ARABS, SUDANESE NEGRO AND FKMALE SHILLUK SLAVE.
4,
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AFRICA
AND ITS INHABITANTS
By ELISEE RECLUS
EDITED
By a. H. KEANE, B.A.
LATE VIGE-PHIESIDEMT ANTHKOP. IN'SriTUTE ; COS. MEMB. ITALIAN' AND WASHINGTON ANTHROP. SOC.
EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF HINDUSTANI, UNIVERSITY COL. LONDON ; AUTHOR OF " ASIA,"
" EASTERN GEOSKAPHV," " ETHNOLOGY," " MAN, PAST AND PRESENT," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS AND MAPS
VOL I.
LONDON :
VIRTUE AND COMPANY, CITY ROAD
J
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CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. Teipolitana . ]
Barka, p. 1. Historical Retrospect, p. 3. Physical Features, p. 4. Climate of Barka,
p. 6. Flora and Fauna, p. 7. Inhabitants, p. 9. Topography, p. 13.
II. The Aujtla Oases 23
Topography, p. 2-5.
III. The Kufea Oases 2^-
Flora and Fauna, p. 31. Inhabitants, p. 31. Topography, p. 32.
rV. The Great Stetis and Trtpolitana Seaboaed 34
General Survey, p. 34. Physical Features, p. 36. Hydrographic System, p. 42. Coast-
lands, p. 43. Climate, p. 44. Flora, p. 46. Fatma, p. 48. Inhabitants, p. 49. The
Arabs of Tripohtana, p. 51. The Negroes and Turks, p. -53. The .Jews, Maltese, and
Europeans, p. 5-5. Topography, p. 55. Tripoli, p. 63.
V. Fezzan 68
Physical Features, p. 69. Lakes and Wadies, p. 71. Oases, p. 73. Climate, p. 74.
Flora, p. 75. Fauna, p. 76. Inhabitants, p. 77. Topography, p. 79.
VI. Ghadames 82
Physical Features, p. 83. Topography, p. 87.
VII. Rhat 90
Topography, p. 92. Government and Administration, p. 93.
VIII. Tunisia 95
The Atlas Orographic System, p. '^6. Ethnical Elements, p. 98. Historic Retrospect, •
p. 101. Physical Features, p. 102. Hydrographic System, p. 106. The Tunisian
• Sebkhas, p. 112. The Coast and Islands, p. 118. The Syrtes, p. 121. Climate, p. 122.
Flora, p. 125. Fauna, p. 127. Inhabitants, p. 130. The Berbers and Arabs, p. 130.
The Turks, p. 136. The Jew.s, p. 137. The Eiu-opeans, p. 138. Topography, p. 139.
Sfakes, p. 149. Kairwan, p. 156. Tunis, p. 168. Carthage, p. 176. Bizerta, p. 182,
Social and Political Condition of Timis, p. 189. Government, p. 193.
IX. Algeria 197
Historic Retrospect, p. 197. Physical Features, p. 201. The Coast Ranges, p. 204.
The Southern Ranges, p. 206. Rivers, p. 212. The Shotts ; Artesian Wells, p. 217.
Climate, p. 221. Flora, p. 223. Faima, p. 226. Inhabitants, p. 227. The Algerian
Arabs, p. 234. The Negroes and Jews, p. 236. Topography, p. 237. Bona, p. 242.
Constantine, p. 245. Philippeville, p. 249. Bougie, p. 252. Kabylia, p. 254. Algiers,
.\FR1CA I.
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IV
CONTENTS.
HAP.
p. 2(iS. Mostagranem, p. 283. Oran, p. 286. Tlemcen, p. 290. Batna, p. 296. Biskra,
p. 303. "Wed-Righ, p. 306. Lagliwat, p. 308. Ghardaya, p. 309. The Mzabites, p.
310. Wargia, p. 314. The Wed Maya, p. 315. El Golea, p. 316. Social Condition of
Algeria, p. 319. Forests; Agriculture, p. 321. The European Settlers, p. 325. Indus-
trie." ; Trade, p. 327. Roads and Riiilways, p. 329. Administration, p. 332. The
Marabuts, p. 337. The Mohammedan Brotherhoods, p. 339. Education, p. 341.
X. Mabocco ....
The Atlas Highlands, p. 348. The Little Atlas and Bani Ranges, p. 352. The Jebel
Aian and Beni Hassan Uplands, p. 353. Rivers, p. 355. Climate, p. 360. Flora, p. 361.
Fauna, p. 362. Inhabitants : the Berbers, p. 363. The Arabs, Jews, and Negroes, p.
369. Topography, p. 370. Jaferin Islands, p. 372. Tetuan, p. 373. Tangier, p. 376.
Larash, p. 377. Fez, p. 379. "Wezzan, p. 383. Mazagan, p. 388. Marocco, p. 390,
Mogador, p. 393. Tarudant, p. 395. Tafilelt Oa.sis, p. 402. The Guir Basin, p. 404.
The Figuig Oasis, p. 406. Social Condition of Marocco, p. 407. Army ; Finance ;
Administrative Divisions, p. 412.
XI. The Sahara. ..............
Extent; Population, p. 414. Progress of Discovery, p. 415. Physical Aspect, p. 416
The Dunes, p. 418. The Ergs, p. 419. Climate, p. 421. Ennedi ; Wajanga, p. 423
Tibesti ; Borkii, p. 424. Climate ; Flora ; Fauna, p. 427. Inhabitants ; the Tibbus, p
423. Topogi-aphy, p. 433. The K&war Oasis, p. 434. Bibna, p. 436. Dibbela
Agadcm ; Jebel Ahaggar, p. 437. North Tassili, p. 439. The Igharghar Basin, p. 442
Ilora and Fauna, p. 444. The Tuareg Berbers, p. 446. The Twat Oases, p. 454. Flora,
Fauna, and Inhabitants of Twat, p. 456. Gurura and Timimun Oases, p. 457. XJlad-
Raffa ; Tsabit ; Tamentit, p. 460. Air and AweUimiden Berbers, p. 463. Topography,
p. 466. Adghagh, p. 469.
346
414
XII Western S.^haea
The Iguidi Dunes, p. 471. Rivers, p. 474. The Atlantic Seaboard, p. 474. Flora,
Fauna, and Inhabitants, p. 476. Topography, p. 477. The Adrar Nomads, p. 480.
The Marabuts p. 481.
471
Appendix. Statistical Tables
IXDEX
483
497
*■.
y
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PLATES.
Arabs, Sudanese Negro, and Female Shilluk
Slave .... Frontispiece.
The Kabr-el-Jebel Cirque . To face pacje
Tripoli, from the Roadstead ....
General view of Murzuk .....
Tunisian Landscape : View taken from the
Tellat Pass
Tunis and Constantine {Map) ....
Khumir Man, Woman, and Child .
Cabes : View taken from the Jara Gardens
Nafta and the Shott-el-Jerid ....
Sfakes : View taken in the Leonec Street
General View of Kairwan
Tunis : Street in the Siik District
Old Ports of Car tb age
General View of El-Kef .
View of Stora Bay .
Arab Jklendicaat, Biakra Negress, and El-
tara Woman
Kabyle Family Group
Saharian Landscape : Nomad Encampment .
General View of Bona .....
General View of Constantine, taken from the
Mansura Route
Kan-
40
64
96
104
132
144
148
152
160
172
176
180
202
228
232
236
242
248
To fate page
256
264
Kabyle Family travelling
Kabyle Village
General View of Algiers, taken from the Kheir
el-Din Pier ....
General View of Bhda
Boghari Village and Market .
Gran : View taken from the Marina
The El-Kantara Gorge .
Street View in Biskra
General View of Laghwat
Beiii-Ramasses Quarter, Constantine
General View of Tetuan .
Tangier : View taken from the East
Wed-el-Halluf, near Figuig .
General View of Fez
The Sahara : View taken fiom the Sfa
North- West of Biskra
Eastern Sahara {Map)
Group of Tibbus
Jebel Khanfusa
The Egueri Gorge .
Western Sahara {Map) .
Mouth of the Wed Draa : View taken from
the Sea . 476
Pass,
268
276
282
288
300
304
308
320
372
376
404
408
420
424
428
440
460
472
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VI
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
no. PAGE
1 . Route of the Chief Explorers in Cyrenaiea 4
2. Zawta of Mazttxa, ix the Algerian
Dahea ... 1 1
3. Tobruk .14
4. Cyreue .10
5. View FEOM THE Neceopolis OF Cteene 17
6. Benghazi 20
7. Regions South of Barka lying below the
Level of the Mediterranean 24
8. Group of the Aujila Oases ... 26
9. The Kufra Oasis 30
10. Kufra Oasis 33
11. Routes of the Chief Explorers in Tripoli -
tana ....... 35
12. Projected Railways across West Africa 37
13. Jebel Ghurian 40
14. Oases and Arable Lands of Tripolitana . 47
15. Inhabitants of Tripolitana ... 52
16. Jofra Oasis ...... 58
17. The Khoms Coast District, Tripolitana 61
IS. Tripoli 64
19. Routes of the Chief Explorers in Fezzan . 70
20. Oases of Fezzan ..... 73
21. Murzuk 80
22. Ghadames District 83
23. The Ghadames Oasis .85
24. Genebal View of Ghadames . . 80
25. Rhat 91
26. Ancient form of Mauritania, according to
Bourguignat's Hypothesis . 90
27. Tabarka Island — View taken fboh the
Coast 103
28. Hamada-el-Kessera 104
29. The Jebel Zaouwan . . .105
30. Lakes of Eskel and Bizerta in 1886 . 107
31. Gorges of the Middle Mejerda . .108
32. Old Beds of the Lower Mejerda .109
33. TuE Mejebda atSluoia, above Mejez-el-
B.VI. Ill
34. Sill of Ci»lx;s 114
35. Zone of the Sliotts south of East Algeria
and Tunis . .115
30. Tracks of Travellers in the Shott-el-Jerid 116
37. Isbnd of Jerbii 120
38. Cape Bon and Zombra Island . .124
39. Native Inhabitants of Tunis * .134
40. TUNLSLAN JEWE.SS 137
41. Houses AT Kasr El-Mctdenin . .140
42. Jeeba Island. Castle neab Humt Suk . 142
43. Peninsula of Nefzawa .146
H. Jfrid .147
no.
45. The Amphitheatee of El-Jem, viewed
FROM THE Ruined Side
46. Mahdiya ....
47. Monastir and Susa
48. Kairwan ....
49. Kabbah of Susa
50. Kairwan: The Mosque of the Swords
51. Ruins of Sbeitla, the Ancient Suffe-
tula .
52. Susa and Enfida
53. Aqueducts of Carthage
54. Tunis
55. La Goletta
66. Carthage .
67. Ancient Ports of Carthage
68. Plain of Ghardimau .
59. Ruins of Utica .
60. Bizerta Old Town, 1886
61. Tabarka .
62. Coek-Tree of Fern ana
63. Railways and Highways of Tunis
64. Gradual Conquest of Algeria .
65. Erosions of the Mountains near Tiaret
66. Junction of the Geodetic Lines between
Algti'ia and Spain
67. Ancient Glaciers of the Haizer Moun
tains
68. Gorges of the Wed Agriun
69. View taken in the Shabet-el-Akea
Route
70. Cape de Fer
71. Lakes of La Calle
72. Cliffs of the Iohaeghae : View taken
FROM THE North of Temassinin
73. Valley of the Wed Mita, between the
Garaa El-Onkseb and the Garaa
T-el-Beida
74. Shott Melghigh and Projected Inland Sea
75. Artesian Wells of Ziban and the Wed Righ
76. Barrage of the Hamiz
77. Rainfall of the Sahara in 1884
78. Forests of Algeria
79. Tlic Alfa Region
80. Cliief Ancient Cities of Algeria
81. Cliief Tribes of Algeria .
82. Arabs and Berbers of Algeria
83. Arab Type : Aoha of Tuouet
84. Suk-Ahras and its Environs
85. La Calle ....
86. Petrified Cascade of Hammam-el-Mesk
HUTUIN
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
FIG.
PAGE
PIG.
87.
Bona
. 243
140.
88.
Edugh and Lake Fetzara
. 244
141.
89.
Constantine in 1836
. 246
142.
90.
The Natueal Abch of Consta
ntine . 247
143.
91.
Constantine in 1884
. 248
92.
Philippe'ville .
250
144.
93.
Jijili ....
. 251
145.
94.
Bougie ....
. 253
146
95.
Zwawa and Ait-Iraten Territo
ry . .257
147.
96.
Chief Tribes of Kabylia .
. 258
97.
Kiikn and Shellata Pass .
. 261
148
98.
Fort National .
. 264
99.
DeUjs ....
. 265
149
100.
Palestro and Gorges of the Iss
^r . . 266
150
101.
Lower Sebau and Isser Valleys
. 267
151
102.
Algiers in 1830
. 269
103.
Algiers in 1885
. 270
152
104.
Steeet View in the Old Tow
N, Algiers 271
105.
Military Lines of Algiers
. 272
153
106.
Sidi-Femish .
. 273
107.
Algerian Sahel
. 274
154
108.
Bufarik ....
. 275
155
109.
Blida ....
. 277
156
110.
Tomb of the Christian J,\m
r . . 278
157
111.
IsthmiLs of Tipaza .
. 279
158
112.
Shershell.
. 280
113.
Tenes ....
. 281
159
114.
Gorge* of the Shelif
. 282
115.
Medea ....
. 283
160
116.
Miliana, Sill of AflEreville
. ■ . 284
161
117.
Mostaganem
. 285
162
118.
Arzeu ....
. 287
163.
119.
Oran ....
. 288
164
120.
Plain of the Andalusians
. 289
165
121.
Tlemcen ....
. 291
166
122.
Street View in Tlemcen
. 292
167
123.
Mouth of the Tafna
. 293
168
124.
Nemours
. 294
169.
125.
Nemotjrs
. 295
170
126.
The Sheliya and Plain of Medi
na . . 297
171
127.
Lambjksis : Ruins of the Pe^
TOErtTM . 298
172
128.
Fum Ksantina
. 299
173
129.
Ancient Roman Towns in Nor
th Aures . 300
174
13Cb A Nail Arab Woman
.301
175
131.
The Bii-Kliail Mountains
. 302
176
132.
Emancipated Negress, Biskea
. •■304
133.
Oases of the Northern and
Southern
177.
Zibans
. 305
178.
134.
The Wed Righ Oasis
. 306
179.
135.
Tugurt ....
. 307
180.
136.
Laghwat
. 308
181.
137.
Mzab ....
. 311
182.
138.
General View of Gh*bdaya
. 312
183.
139.
Mzab and MetliU .
. 313
184.
Wargla ......
El-Golea
The Ain-Sefra Highlands
Growth of the European Population in
Algeria since 1830
Teniet-el-Haad and its Forests
A Great Algerian Domain
Thermal Springs ....
Growth of the Foreign Trade of Algeria
since 1830
Lines of Steam Navigation between Mauri
tania and the Opposite Coast
Roads and Railways of Algeria
An Arab Family of Tlemcen .
Fully Privileged, Mixed, and Native
Communes in Algeria
Relative Population of the Algerian Com
munes .....
Holy Cities and Chief Religious Associa
tions in Algeria ....
Algiers in 1832 ....
Tiaret and Tagdemt
Routes of the Chief Erplorers in Marocco
Bled-el-Makhzen and Bled-es-Siba .
Oests and Passes of the Atlas South of
Marrakesh . . , .
Jebel Tiza : View taken from ti
Tagherut Pass ....
The Tetuan Highlands .
The Sherat River ....
Lower Coiu\se of the Sebu
Arabs and Berbers of Maghreb-el- Aksa
A Tangier Arab ....
Arab Woman of Tangier
Arab Camel-Driver
LT^jda, Isly, and the Angad Plain .
Tetuan ......
Ceuta ......
Tangier ......
El-Ai"aish and Chemmish
Fez and Neighbourhood .
A Gateway in Fez ....
Mecnes and Volubilis
MuLAi Tayeb, Sherif of Wezzan .
Rbat and Mouth of the Bu-Regrao
View t.vk;en from Sla
Rbat and Sla
Mazagan and Azemmur .
Maeocco— TfTE Christian's Gate .
Marrakesh
Mogador and Neighbourhood .
Tarudant .....
Ifni and Neighbouring Coast .
Wed Zis and Tafilelt Oases .
Vli
PAGE
315
317
318
320
322
326
328
329
330
331
3.34
336
337
342
343
346
.347
349
350
354
356
357
358
364
365
368
371
373
374
376
378
379
380
382
384
386
387
389
391
392
394
396
399
403
J
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
185,
186.
187.
18S,
189,
190,
191,
192,
193,
194.
195.
PAOB
405
406
409
410
411
420
El-Bahnriat of the Wed Guir .
Fifi-ui-r Oasis
A yoiiooL IN Fez . • • •
Frontiera of Algeria and Marocco .
Fez : Gateway of the Kasbah
The Great East Erg
Routes of the Chief Explorer.<! in the
Eastern iSahara 425
Northern Tibesti 426
Borku 431
Kawar Oasis 435
Routes of the Chief Explorers between
Algeria and the Tuareg Territory . 439
no. P^os
196. Geology of the Sahara south of Al-
geria ...... 443
197. Taequi Type . - . 448
198. TUAREGS ON A JoUENEY .... 449
199. Issawan Valley 454
200. Gurara and Wed Saura .... 458
201. Twat and Tidikelt 462
202. Air 467
203. Routes of the Chief Explorers iu the
Westeni Sahara . . . .472
204. RiodeOro 475
205. Arawan and Mabruk .... 479
AFRICA AND ITS INHABITANTS.
CHAPTER I.
TRIPOLITANA.
HE portion of the African continent designated on the maps by the
name of Tripolitana is a territory destitute of geographical unity.
A vast region over 400,000 square miles in extent, it comprises
several distinct countries separated from each other by uninhabited
or even uninhabitable solitudes. Here the desert, or at least the
steppes leading to it, reach the Mediterranean at the Syrtis Major. The space
comprised between Cyrenaica on the east, and the Ghurian highlands near Tripoli,
forms a land of imperceptible transition between the coast and Sahara zones, while
the whole of Southern TripoKtana already belongs to the desert, properly so called.
Here we meet with little but rocky, stony, argillaceous, or sandy tracts, except in
some depressions, where a few springs afford sufficient water for man and his date-
groves. Hence Tripolitana is regarded as a geographical unit rather through a
political fiction than on account of its physical conditions. The whole region
comprised under this name is not even politically subject to the Sublime Porte.
Tj^us the Kuf ra oasis, although usually included amongst the possessions of Turkej',
has hitherto maintained its independence, while in several oases lying nearer to the
coast the Sultan's authority is purely nominal.
Barka. •
"West of Egypt and its dependent northern oases stretches the Barka plateau,
often called Cyrenaica, from the famous city of Cyrene, built here by the Hellenes.
Politically it forms part of the regency of Tripoli, and it is consequently, at least
in appearance, directly subject to the Turkish Government. But geographically it
AFRICA I. 3
■ /,
2 NORTH-WEST AFEIOA.
is entirely distinct from the rest of Tripolitana, and contemporary events have
shown how unstable is the present political equilibrium. It may well happen that
in the near future the partition of Africa, already begun by the European Powers,
may cause both Cyrene and Tripolitana to be transferred from their present Ottoman
rulers probably to the Italians. Even now the de facto masters of the land are not
those appointed by Stambul. The religious order of the Senusiya, which was first
established in Algeria, and whose capital is at Jarabiib, in the Faredgha oasis, is
the true rulin^ power throughout the whole region comprised between the Egyptian
frontier and the Gulf of Cabes. Here the Turkish officials are tolerated only on
the condition of conforming themselves to the mandates addressed to them by the
agents of the head of the order, and aU persons invested with magisterial or
municipal offices belong to this community. The summons to arms issued by the
" ISFahdi " of Jarabub would even now be instantly obeyed by a regular army of
infantry and cavalry, already organised independently of the Turkish Government.
The region of the African seaboard comprised between Egj^t and Tripoli,
properly so called, is at present of all Mediterranean lands the least frequented by
European traders, and the most thinly peopled country in the basin of the great
inland sea. Three hundred thousand persons at most, possibly even not more than
two hundred and fifty thousand, are scattered over the space Limited eastwards by
the Egyptian frontier, westwards by the depression stretching from the Faredgha
oasis towards the Great Syrtis, or Gulf of Sidra ; that is, a proportion of less than
ten to the square mile. The steamers navigating the Mediterranean in all direc-
tions seldom call at the ports on the Barka seaboard ; hence this strip of coast,
which extends for about 1,200 miles, from Alexandria to Tripoli, maintains scarcely
any commercial relations with the outer world.
But on the other hand, the expansive power of the European nations is every-
where followed by ine^'itable consequences ; nor can there be any doubt that
Cyrenaica will again become a flourishing colony, attracting, as it did some twenty-
five centuries ago, industrious settlers from Greece and Italy. The projecting
coastline of Barka approaches to within 240 miles of Cape Matapan ; in these
waters, forming the zone of separation between the eastern and central Mediter-
ranean basins, Africa seems, as it were, to meet Europe half-way, and it would be
strange if the throbbing life of "Western civilisation failed to make itself ultimately
felt in this neighbouring region of the " Dark Continent."
Hitherto, however, European influence — which, following the great maritime
highways of the globe, has become dominant at the Antipodes themselves — has been
almost imperceptible in this Libyan land, which, nevertheless, for a period of over
a thousand years, formed an integral part of the Hellenic world, the centre of
ancient science and art. During the Roman period, Cyrenaica was still regarded
as forming a dependency*of Greece, and it even constituted, ^Wth the island of Crete,
a single administrative province.
mSTOEIC EETEOSPECTr
Historic Retrospect.
.;
On the North African seaboard the rounded mass of the plateau of Barka
corresponds with the region of Tunis, which limits the Gulf of Cabes towards the
west, and projects in the Carthaginian headlands in the direction of Sicily. The
two territories resemble one another in their geographical position, their climate,
and products. They also played their part in the history of the old world, one
through its Hellenic colonies, the other through its Phoenician republic. In
comparing Cyrene with Carthage, observers have dwelt on the natural advantages
of the former, and have expressed their surprise that it never rose to the same pitch
of commercial prosperity as its western rival. It is, however, to be observed that
for the purposes of international trade Carthage really occupied a position far
superior to that of the maritime cities of Cyrenaica. Forming no part of the Greek
world, it did not reach the same standard of general culture ; and although not
lacking great thinkers, it never exercised the same influence in the development of
the arts and sciences.
But on the other hand, Carthage played a far more considerable part in the
commercial world. Being hemmed in on all sides by the wilderness, the plateau
of Cyrene drew from the interior a very limited quantity of supplies, imported by
the difficult and tedious route of the oases ; hence its natural trading relations were
rather with the Hellenic islands and peninsulas facing it on the opposite side of the
Mediterranean. But the more favourably situated city of Carthage necessarily
became the chief outlet of a vast and populous region stretching far into the interior
of the continent. Almost within sight of Sicily, and standing on the great
Mediterranean strait, where converge the main water highways from Greece and
Spain, it commanded the central position of the whole maritime basin. Over the
Greek cities it enjoyed the further advantage of being situated nearer to the
*' Columns of Hercules," and its vessels were the first to plough the waters of the
boundless ocean.
"Wasted by the Arabs, especially during their second invasion in the middle of
the eleventh century, the inhabitants of Barka lost their trade and culture ; the
land lapsed into barbarism, its ruined cities and its burial-places became the haunts
of wild beasts. The myth of Hercides and Antaeus personifies the struggles of the
Greek settlers against the natives of Cyrenaica, the Libyan giant drawing fresh
strength from the ground each time he touched his mother, Earth. But, not-
•rith standing the fable, which records the victory of Hercules, it was Antaeus who
triumphed in the end. However, the type of the ancient Berber population does
not seem still to prevail. Diversely modified by crossings with Greeks, Negroes,
and Turks, the Libyan stock has been further replaced, or almost entirely trans-
formed, by Arab intermixture. Future immigration w?il give the political ascen-
dancy to the Europeans ; but the local element will doubtless always remain the
most numerous here, as elsewhere throughout North Africa.
The pending annexation of Cyrenaica to the cultured world has already been
sufficiently prepared by the researches of modern explorers. At the beginning of
*
■ ;.
4 NOETH-^'EST APEICA.
the eighteeutll oentUTJ the French traveller, Lemaire, was already studying th.e
ruins of the old Greek cities. Sections of the seaboard were surveyed by Paul
Lucas, Shaw, Bruce, Granger, while in 1811 and 1817, the Italians Cervelli and
Delia Cella penetrated into the interior, and for the first time recorded systematic
observations on the soil, climate, products, and antiquities of the co\mtry.
Then came the brothers Beechey, who occupied themselves chiefly with the
maritime districts, and the artist Pacho, whose attention was directed mainly to the
ruined cities of the plateaux. Cyrenaica was also traversed by Delaporte, De
Bourville, Barth, Hamilton, De Beurmann, Gerhard Rohlfs, Murdoch Smith, and
Porcher, and of late years it has been successivelj' visited by a great many travellers,
Fig. 1.— Route of the Chief Exploeees in Cyeenaica.
Scale 1 : 3,500,000.
55*
S A R
53-
(52'
tj> V oT Ur«
Depths.
0 to 320
Feet.
1. Delia Cella, DC.
2. BeecheT, Bch.
3. Plif;ho,'P.
320 to 1.600
Feet.
\. Pezant, P.
f). Barth, Ba.
G. Hamilton, Ha.
1,600 to 3,200
Feet.
7. Beurmann, B.
8 Rohlfs, R.
9. Sleeker, S.
_^_- GO Miles.
3,200 Feet
and upwards.
10. Freund, F.
11. Camperio, C.
12. Haimaim, S.
astronomers, geographers and naturalists, nearly all of whom were sent by the
Italian Society of Commercial Exploration in Africa. The chief objects of these
continuous visits is to prepare the way for the political occupation of the counti\'
by the kingdom of Italy.
Physical Fe.\tures of Bauka.
Between Egypt and the territory of Barka there are no natural frontiers. The
hills and plateaux, skirting the north side of the Siwah oasis, are continued
westwards, rising gradually into terraced uplands, which, beyond the GuLf of
Solo&m, or Mcllah, acquire the dignity and title of jebel (mountains). Here is the
> \
»>
PHYSICAL FEATUEES OF BAEKA. 6
starting-point of the line of demarcation officially laid down between Egypt and
Tripolitana. The headland commanding the Gulf of Soloum was ever regarded by
Sallust, Pomponius Mela, and other ancient authors as the angular limit between
Africa and Asia, Egypt being considered by them as belonging to the eastern
continent. At this point the highest summits of the plateau exceed 1,000 feet,
and the coast route has to surmount a projecting ridge by means of a graded track,
whence the promontory, as far as the Eas-el-Melah, took its Greek name of Kata-
bathmos Megas, or "Great Descent." At present the Egyptian Arabs give it the
title of Akabet-el-Kebir, or " Great Ascent," and to El-Edrisi it was known as the
Akabah-el-Soloum, or " Graded Ascent," whence the present name of the neigh-
bouring gulf. It is easy to understand how seafarers and caravan traders at all
times looked upon these abrupt declivities, and the deep indentation formed by the
Gulf of Soloum, as a natui'al limit, although farther inland the plateau is continued
on either side without any great differences of level.
From the Gulf of Soloum to the great bend, whose western extremity is occupied
by Benghazi, the seaboard is divided into two nearly equal sections by the so-called
Gulf of Bomba, which is limited westwards by the Ras-et-Tin, or " Fig-tree Cape."
East of this deep inlet, already marked out as the site of a future naval station
analogous to that of Spezia, the coast district coincides with the ancient Marmarica,
or Marmaridis ; to the west is developed in a graceful curve the shore-line of
Cyrenaica, properly so called. The two territories are clearly separated by the bed
of the Wady Temmim, which, however, is dry for several months in the year.
Some 60 miles long, it is the only torrent in Barka which is anything more than a
mere ravine, flushed only for a few hours after each rainfall.
On either side of this intermediate depression, the heights present different
natural features. The Miocene plateau of Marmarica has an average elevation
less than half that of Cyrenaica, and its depressions, nearly all parallel with the
shore, are mere folds in the rocky surface rather than true valleys. In the west,
on the contrary, the hills of Cyrenaica constitute a veritable highland, the so-called
Jebel Akhdar, or " Green Mountains," some of whose crests exceed 3,300 feet in
altitude. This term, however, is more specially restricted to the western group of
uplands, which, notwithstanding their rounded outlines, bear a closer resemblance
to the Apennines than any other African district. The same trees overshadow
the same undergrowth ; a mean temperature differing little from that of Italy
prevails over hill and dale ; the breeze wafted over the thickets is charged with the
p^me perfumes ; the same blue waters sparkle at the foot of the escarpments.
Travelling across the land of Barka, visitors from Italy fancy themselves still sur-
rounded by the scenery of their native homes.
The Greeks also had converted this region into an African Hellas. In their
enthusiasm here they placed the first of those " Gardens i)f the Hesperides " which
their daring navigators, pushing still westwards, had scattered, so to say, from
Cyrenaica to the utmost verge of the mainland. The Arabs in their turn bore
testimony to their admiration for its natural beauties, by the title of " Green
Mountains," which they gave to the Barka highlands. Whether they arrived from
■ ; .
6 NORTH-WEST AFEICA.
the south-east or west, they had still to traverse bare and waterless solitudes. Hencej
the sudden contrast naturally caused them to regard as earthly Edens the green
slopes and purling brooks of these pleasant uplands.
The plateau of Cyrenaica is largely indebted for its inviting aspect to the
graceful outlines of its hills, which develop their highest summits in the very
neio-hboiirhood of the seaboard. The coastlands, in some places presenting the
pink tint of the corals which form about a third of the whole mass, are skirted by
tracts sloping gently to the foot of the vertical cliffs, or abrupt rocky walls broken
bv narrow o-oro-es, through which wind the paths obliquely scaling their steep
sides. Above this limestone pedestal tower the crests of the Jebel Akhdar,
bevond which the traveller finds himself already on the verge of the desert. Here
the beds of dry wadies open southwards ; to the wooded hills succeed the serirs, vast
stonv wastes, or extensive plains clothed with a scant vegetation of alfa and other
grasses.
The colovir of the soil changes with its relief. The Barka highlands are covered
with a reddish humus, whence the designation of Barka-el-Hamra, or "Barka the
red," applied by the Arabs to this region. But southwards the fertile red clays of
upper Cvrenaica gradually merge in the grey and white tints of the sands and bare
rocks characteristic of Barka-el-Beida, or " Barka the white." Still farther south,
where the arid soil no longer supports the scantiest vegetation, the desert wastes
bear no geographical name. Here nothing meets the eye except the shifting dime,
rock, or hard clay wearily traversed by caravans, whose track is marked only by
wells of brackish water, occurring at long intervals.
Climate of Barka.
The northern section of Barka, beyond the serirs and dunes of the " white "
region, enjoys an Italian climate. At sea-level the normal annual temperature
ranges from 70° to 73° F., according to the latitude — an isothermal mean several
degrees above that of Southern Italy. But on the uplands, exposed to cooler
marine breezes, the temperature falls to the level of that of Sicily and Naples. On
the plateaux of Cyrene, 1,600 feet high, the heat during the day varies from 54° F.
in \\'inter to 84° in simimer.* At night the temperature, although considerably
lovjered by the effects of radiation in a cloudless sky, seldom falls to the freezing-
point.
Altogether, for its soft and equable climate, Cyrenaica stands almost unrivalleG.
Here the traveller rarely suffers from the extremes either of heat or cold. He may
also easily change from one zone to another, for the plains, plateaux, and highlands
are all alike clothed with that rich red humus on which flourish all the cultivated
plants of temperate regioRs. As long ago pointed out by Herodotus, " the territory
of Cyrene has three admirable seasons. The coastlands abound in fruits which
first arrive at maturity. Then follow the harvest and the vintage, and the crops
are scarcely garnered when the fruits on the hills are ripe enough to be gathered.
• Hamilton, " Wanderings in North Africa."
»>
FLOEA AND FAUNA OF BAEKA. 7
Then those of the culminating region reach maturity, so that the first harvest is
consumed when the last arrives. Thus for eight months the Cyreneans are always
harvesting." *
" Red " Barka belongs to the Mediterranean zone of winter rains, although it
is also frequently refreshed with autumn showers. Its almost insular position
exposes Cyrenaica to all the moisture-bearing winds, except those from the south
and south-east; and the humidity being arrested by the lofty heights, often descends
in copious rains. At times the torrents rushing through the mountain gorges
down to the coast towns have converted into mud and swept away the hovels, and
undermined the more substantial dwellings. Still the yearly rainfall is less than
in most European countries, ranging, according to Fischer, from 14 to 20 inches, or
from haK to two-thirds that of France. From Alexandria to Cyrene it increases
gradually westwards. Much, however, of the rain water disappears at once in the
fissures of the limestone ground, and is thus lost for the higher lands. But lower
dLovm it reappears on the plains, welling up in copious springs at the foot of the
cliffs. In many places, and especially in the vicinity of Benghazi, west of the
Jebel Akhdar, the subterranean waters would reach the coast through hidden
channels, if the ancients had not contrived to arrest their course and bring them to
the surface.
In spite of the rains which fall on the uplands, Cyrenaica has not a single
permanent stream, while " White " Barka, the region of sands and bare rocks, has
nothing but its waterless wadies, and at long intervals a few wells from which
oozes a brackish fluid.
Flora and Fauna of Barka.
The vegetation, being regulated by the quantity of rain water, either received
directly from the clouds or filtered through ground in flowing streams, naturally
increases in exuberance in the direction from east to west. A careful exploration
of the district about the port of Tobruk, in Marmarica, jdelded to Schweinfurth not
more than two hundred and twenty plants, whereas Ascherson has enumerated as
many as four hundred and ninety-three for Western Cyrenaica. The upland
region of the plateau, where the rain escapes rapidly through the surface fissures,
offers little beyond greyish species, whose scanty foliage is parched by the summer
suns. Here and there the monotony of the barren wastes is broken by a stunted
acacia or a solitary turpentine-tree. But on all the slopes and in all the depres-
sions, where the rain water is retained for any length of time, the laurel, elder,
myrtle, mastic, eglantine, and other southern shrubs cluster round the evergreen
oak and tall cypress, of freer growth than those of Italy, and rising at times to a
height of over 160 feet. *
These dense thickets of trees and shrubs, which never lose their verdure, explain
the designation of Jebel Akhdar, the " Green Hills," applied by the Arabs to the
highest uplands of Barka. The forest trees no longer supply much more than fuel
* Book iv., §.199.
/ .
8 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
and timber for the coast towns. But in former times the thuyas of Cyrenaica
were used to make those costly "tiger" and "panther" grained tables, which were
so highly prized by the Romans, and the exquisitely perfumed wood of which was
supposed to have been employed by Circe in her incantations.
The slopes facing seawards are clothed with forests of the wild olive, whose
branches are shaken for the berry, greedily eaten by sheep and goat. The carob,
when allowed to grow in the open, throws off such a mass of young sprouts that
whole families of Bedouins take up their residence during the summer months
beneath this vast canopy of verdure, sheltering them from all eyes. Like the
streams of Greece, the wadies of Barka are fringed with oleander plants ; dwarf
palms grow in clusters along the sea-coast ; fruit-trees of the Italian zone,
dominated here and there by the tall stems and branches of the date-palm, flourish
in the well- watered gardens now usually surrounded with hedges of the " Barbary
fig," an immigrant from the New World, which has already become so common
in the Mediterranean flora.
Some of the fertile valleys opening seawards are stocked with as many species
of plants as the ancient " Garden of the Hesperides " itself, described in the
Periplous of Scylax. This marvellous land was situated according to Pliny near
Berenice ; but Scylax states expressly that it was not far from the Ras-Sem, the
Phycus of the ancients, that is, the northernmost headland of CjTenaica,
iiccordiug to the description of the Greek writer, it occupied a natural gorge or
an ancient quarry, like the latomm of Syracuse. The brothers Beechey beHeved
they had discovered its site amid the now flooded precipices to the east of
Benghazi, but none of these present the dimensions of the garden as described by
Scylax. Some idea of its exquisite beauty may be had by ^-isiting the chasms now
filled with verdure which open abruptly in the stony plateau near Syracuse.
Orange, citron, medlar, peach trees, all struggling upwards towards the blue
vault of heaven, rise to heights of from 50 to 60 or 70 feet. The stems of the
trees are enclosed by leafy shrubs, tlieir branches entwined by wreaths of creepers,
the paths strewn with flowers and fruits, the foliage alive with song of birds.
Above this elysium of fragrant and flowering plants rise the grey rocks, here
and there clothed with ivy, their every crest crowned with verdure.
The silphiwn, or laserpitium, at one time one of the main resources of Cyrenaica,
an J whose very name had passed into a proverb implying the most precious of
treasures, is now found only in the wild state on the cliff, if indeed it is the same
plant. The old ^vriters tell us that it had already disappeared in their time, and
amongst the modern observers, Schroff, Oersted, Ascherson and others, have
expressed the opinion that the plant so highly valued by the Greeks and Romans
for its curative \'irtues, was a species of asafoetida. Nevertheless most naturalists
accept the hypothesis of Delia Cella, the first explorer of the country, who supposes
that the silphiuin was the drias or adna^ of the natives — that is, the thapsia
garganica of botanists. The Cyrenian coins represent this umbellifer with
sufficient accuracy, although its form is somewhat enlarged and its fruit of some-
what too cardiform a shape. Like the hardened sap of the silphium, which
\
, \
INHABITANTS OF BAEKA. 9
fetched its weight in silver, and which was preserved in the State treasury, the
liqiiid extracted from the present adrias is regarded by the natives as a panacea,
and is employed especially in the treatment of wounds inflicted by animals.
In Europe the researches of Heinzmann have also proved that this plant
should be accepted in the modern pharmacopoea, on account of its purifying
properties. No apparent difference can be discovered between the Algerian and
Cyrenian thapsia garganica ; yet some difference there must be, seeing that the
Algerian species has scarcely any curative %'irtues. On the other hand, camels
may browse on it without danger, although the drias of Barka is fatal to them, as
was formerly the silphium.*
At present the land of Barka contributes but little to the general increase of
wealth in the world. It no longer exports either medicinal drugs, the essence of
roses, or the white truffles for which it was formerly renowned. Wheat, barley,
cucumbers, tobacco, a few vegetables form, with the garden fruits, the only products
of the local agriculture. The wild bee gathers an exquisite honey from the
flowering plants. Tillage is in a rudimentary state ; nor do the wonderful crops
of wheat mentioned by the ancients as yielding a hundred and even three hiindred-
fold, appear to have been witnessed in modern times. Occasionally want even
prevails, and as a rule about every fifth year is unproductive. The slopes of the
Jebel Akhdar are best adapted for the cultivation of the olive, and the oil supplied
by the few olive-groves farmed by the Italians is of excellent quality.
However rich in vegetation, the " Green Mountains " are extremely poor in
animal species. The only wild beasts here seen are the hyaena and jackal. But
the thickets of the depressions are infested by the wild boar, while the gazelle,
hare, and rabbit, abound on the plateau. Reptiles, birds, insects, belong almost
exclusively to the same species as those of Mauritania. The budding vegetation
is occasionally devoured by the locust, and the wild bee deposits its burden of honey
in the fissures of the rocks.
Southwards this scanty fauna gradually diminishes, until it disappears
altogether beyond the zone of oases. After crossing the Wady Fareg, the traveller
discovers that he is no longer accompanied even by the flea. He no longer
crushes a shell under foot, or perceives a single bird on the wing. In the villages
and encampments of Barka the domestic animals differ in no respect from those of
Mauritania. There as here they are still the ass and mule, sheep, goats,* and
horned cattle. The horses no longer belong to that superb race described by
*Pindar, when singing of Cp'enaica famed for its " fine steeds," But if small,
heavy, and ungainly, they are at least sure-footed and endure hardships well.
Inhabitants of Barka. •
The land of Barka is peopled exclusively by Arabs of more or less mixed stock,
who, however, claim to be of pure descent, and who speak the language of the
Prophet according to the Egj^tian standard, slightly affected by Maugrabian
* Mamoli, " Esploratore, " vol. v., 1881.
AFRICA I. n
y V
; .
10 NORTH-WEST APEICA.
elements. No feature in their physical appearance seems to betray any trace of
Hellenic or Roman blood, -while the Berber type here so closely resembles that of
the Arabs, that it would be difficult to distinguish the races in so mixed a popula-
tion.
In Derna, Benghazi, and other towns subject to the influences of external
commerce, the usages differ little from those of the Egyptian Arabs, and the
women do not appear unveiled in public. Here, also, the inhabitants are grouped,
not according to their tribes, but according to their trades and pursuits. But in
the rural districts distinct territories are occupied by the ailets, a term collectively
applied to all the tribes of Cyrenaica. The Aulad-Ali of the Egj^tian Libya are
encroaching from the west on the Barka highlands, where they already possess
extensive grazing-grounds. Here they are replacing the Marmaridao, who gave
their name to the country under the Ptolemies, and who subsequently followed
the general movement of migration and conquest in the direction from east to
west.
The Zwiyas lead a wandering life in the section of the plateau in the vicinity of
Derna, whence they descend southwards as far as White Barka, south of Ben-
ghazi. The more numerous Abeidats, jointly with the Berasa, the Hassa and
Dorsa, occupy the districts of the Jcbel Akhdar, lying east aijd west of the ruins
of Cj'rene. The Eshteh dwell in the western part of the range above Benghazi,
while immediately north and south of them are the camf>ing- grounds of the
Bragtas and other clans of the Awaghirs, the most powerful of all the Barka
tribes. This ailet is said to be able to muster in war time altogether 10,000
infantry and 1,000 horsemen. The Harabi, Mogharba, and other less important
tribes occupy the lower terrace lands comprised between the Barka highlands and
the desert.
All these Libyan Arabs are fond of painting the breast, arms, and face with
antimony. The women, who never go veiled, always dye the lower lip black, and
encircle the eyes with the same extract of koheul. Both sexes wear the haidi, a
kind of toga, to which Europeans give the name of hamkan. During youth the
daughters of Cyrenaica are comely, but proportionately much smaller than the
men. The national diet is a species of " barley-bree," known as basiiia. It was
amongst the Arabs of Merj, the ancient Barke, that the " bubonic pestilence "
brok*^ out in the year 1874, and Cyrenaica is said, with the West Persian highlands
and those of Assir, in Arabia, to be one of the three regions where this disorder is
endemic.
Since the middle of the present century, thanks especially to the establishment
of the order of the Scnusiya in this part of Tripoli tana, the Arabs of Barka have
certainly made some progress in material culture and moral cohesion. Manners
have undergone a great Change, and certain questionable laws of hospitality
described by all travellers from Herodotus to Barth are no longer practised. On
the other hand, the natives have become less kindly and cheerful, more sullen and
surly to strangers.
In the year 1843, the Algerian Sheikh Senusi cl-Mcjahiri, being compelled to
INHABITANTS OF BAEKA.
11
quit Mecca, where he had made some powerful enemies by his mode of life and his
rigid principles, sought a temporary refuge in Benghazi. Then he founded at
Kg. 2.— Zawya op Mazttna, in the Algerian Dahea.
el-Be"ida, west of Cyrene, a first zawya, at once a monastery, mosque, school, hospital,
military stronghold, and centre of culture. Other fugitives, mostly Algerians, like
f .
12 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
the " saint," who summoned them to follow the " way of salvation," flocked to his
standard and were well received. New monasteries were established in other parts
of the coimtry, and their inmates soon exchanged the character of guests for that
of masters. They soon became so powerful that already in 1851 the traveller
Hamilton had to defend himself against their fanatical followers. At present the
most important person in the province of Barka, and even in Benghazi, where the
flags of the European consuls are hoisted, is not the mutessarif, appointed by the
Sultan, but the wakil, or agent of the Sheikh of the Seuusiya, to whom the Govern-
ment has even granted the right of exercising justice. In the district over 25,000
cavalry and infantry are at his disposition, over and above the Khican, or brethren
and their retainers, who reside in the twenty zaw^^as scattered over Cyrenaica.
Everywhere are met slaves and animals branded with the name of Allah, the mark
of the brotherhood.
Yet the Sheikh himself no longer resides in the country. In 1855 he prudently
withdrew beyond the range of European influence to the Faredgha oasis, which,
although officially belonging to Egj-pt, lies on a borderland surrounded by solitudes,
where neither sultan nor khedive exercises any authority. Here he first took up
his abode in a necropolis excavated in the live rock. But in his capital, Jarabub,
he is now master of convents, barracks, arsenals, depots and other extensive struc-
tures, which are mirrored in the brackish waters of Lake Faredgha. Here is the
centre of the religious empire, which stretches on the one hand as far as Senegal,
on the other to Mesopotamia, comprising not less than 1,500,000 subjects, all "in
the hands of their Sheikh, as the body is in the hands of those who lay out the
dead."
The son of the founder, who succeeded him in 1859, has become the undisputed
head of the sect, blindly obeyed by all the Khwans of the Moslem world, who see
in him the ^lahdi, the "guide," or rather the " well guided," destined to restore
the power of Islam. Doubtless the Senusiya aspire outwardly to no special political
aim ; their ideal is to confederate all the orthodox religious orders in a single
theocratic body, independent of all secular authority. They discountenance violence,
and recommend to their oppressed brethren, not revolt, but voluntary banishment
from the districts subject to Christian sway, and withdrawal to the independent
zawyas. But while ostensibly condemning political agitation, the Senusiya none
the 4es8 aim at absolute independence, and their compact organisation has rendered
them far more formidable enemies than many restless tribes always ready to revolt.
The Mussulman solidarity has brought them more conquests than they could have
hoped to achieve by arms. Thus they have already secured TVadai by ransoming a
gang of slaves en route for Egypt, and sending them back to their homes as
missionaries of the holy cause. At present the Sultan of "Wadai is a mere
lieutenant of the Mahdi of Jarabub, and all his subjects are affiliated to the order.
But it is probable that evil days are in store for these zealous Panislamists, and
that their troubles will begin as soon as European influences make themselves
directly felt by the open or disguised occupation of the land of Barka. The official
Bway of the Turk and secret authority of the Senusiya run the risk of a joint
, \
TOPOGEAPHY OF BAEKA. 13
collapse. During recent years tlie faithful adherents of the order, and especially
the citizens of Benghazi, are said to have relaxed considerably in the rigour of
their religious professions. It is no rare sight to behold members of the confrater-
nity openly violating the observances of the law by smoking tobacco and wearing
silken garments embroidered in gold and silver.
Topography of Barka.
The attention of the European Powers is directed especially to the local seaports,
which could be defended by no native force, and the possession of which would
enable them to command all the routes leading to the interior. In the eastern dis-
trict of Marmarica the port of Marsa Tohruk, known also as Taharka, seems to present
the greatest advantage as a convenient naval station and arsenal. At this point a
peninsular mass running parallel with the coast in the general direction from north-
west to south-east, terminates at its eastern extremity in two sharp headlands, and
at the other end is connected with the mainland by a low isthmus. An inlet some
two miles long is limited northwards by this peninsula, and southwards by the
cliffs and escarpments of a plateau furrowed by ravines, in which are occasionally
seen the foaming waters of cascades some 500 feet high. Vessels drawing over
33 feet can ride in perfect security in this spacious natural haven, sheltered from all
winds except those from the east and south-east. A breakwater constructed at the
entrance of the bay might arrest the swell from the east, and thus convert the port
of Tobruk into one of the best and at the same time one of the largest harbours of
refuge in the Mediterranean basin.
The ruins either of Antipi/rgos or some other Greek city at the neck of the
peninsula, and those of a Saracenic castle on the north side of the port, show that this
convenient harbour was never lost sight of, although the surrounding regions are
almost desert wastes. In former times Tobruk was probably the station where
pilgrims landed en route for the shrine of Jupiter Ammon in the Siwah oasis. It
was also a port of call for vessels plying between Rome and Alexandria. At
present it serves as the outport for cattle supplied by the neighbouring pastoral
tribes to the markets of Alexandria, and especially of Jarabub and the other
zawj^as of the Senusi Khwans.
Hound the bay of Tobruk Schweinfurth has detected signs of local uph^val.
At a height of 160 feet and a distance of nearly half a mile from the beach, he
'noticed the shells of the surrounding waters still preserving their natural colour.
At some points farther west, near Cyrene and Benghazi, Hamilton thought he
observed traces of the opposite phenomenon of subsidence.
The Gulf of Bomha, more frequented than the Bay of Tobruk by the small local
coasters, enjoys the advantage of being situated iminediately east of Cyrenaica
proper, in the vicinity of a fertile and relatively well-peopled district. But it is
much more exposed than Tobruk, and less accessible to large vessels, which are
obliged to cast anchor a long way from the coast ; small craft, however, find safe
anchorage behind the islets at the entrance of the bay.
] .
14
NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
The so-called " port ol Menelaus " Hes to the north of the roadstead. But it
comprises merely a smaU group of huts, and aU the old Hellenic towns of the
district have disappeared, ahuost without leaving a vestige by which to determine
their sites. The establishment of a European colony, often proposed in the Italian
press, would be greatly imperilled by the malaria prevalent on the coast, where the
Wady Temim loses its waters in stagnant pools. In this district the marine in-
r\
Fig. 3.— ToBEtfg.
Scale 1 : 85,000.
Depths.
0 to 32 Feet. 32 Feet and upwards.
^"-^^-^—^—^^ 3,300 Yards.
shore current, which sets from west to east, when not obstructed by the winds, has a
mean velocity of nearly two miles an hour.
To reach Dcma, the ancient Darnis, the first town on the east coast of Barka
the traveller must skirt the 'north foot of the red escarpments of the Ras-et-Tin'
and foUow the north-west coast for a distance of 30 miles. This place, which was
re-occupied in the sixteenth century by Andalusian Moors, comprises a group of
five villages, or distinct quarters, divided into two sections by the bed of a torrent
Every house is here surrounded by a trellised vine, or overshadowed by a date-
. \
» <
CYEENE. 15
palm, beneath which, the family gathers after the day's work. Of all the gardens
of CjTenaica those of Derna best deserve the old name of the " Hesperides."
Watered by two streams flowing from the neighbouring hills and ramifying in a
thousand channels, the dense foKage of their verdant groves presents a striking
contrast to the grey and bare rocks of the ravine. They yield figs, grapes, dates,
oranges, citrons, and choice bananas, which with the wool, corn, wax, and honey
brought from the interior, the sponges fished up in the neighbouring shallows, and
some woven goods of local manufacture, contribute to maintain a small export trade.
The olive groves, which date from Eoman times, no longer yield any products, and
should be replaced by fresh plantations.
The merchants of Derna keep up some relations with Benghazi, Malta, Canea,
Alexandria, employing vessels of small tonnage, which cast anchor at some distance
from the town in a roadstead exposed to all winds except those from the west and
south. During the rough weather in winter, they seek shelter in the Gulf of
Bomba. In 1815, when the United States sent an expedition against the corsairs
of Tripoli, a detachment of marines seized Derna, and erected a battery to the west
of the town, the remains of which are still visible. The Americans also began to
construct a harbour at the mouth of the ravine ; but their stay was too short to
complete these works, and since then no further improvements have been attempted.
The place has even fallen into decay, and in 1821 the plague is said to have
reduced the population from 7,000 to 500. A large portion of Derna was at that
time abandoned, and since the beginning of the century it has lost fully one- third
of its inhabitants.
"West of Derna the first harbour occurring along the coast still preserves, under
a slightly modified form, the name of " Port Saviour," given to it by some Greek
authors. This is the Marsa Susa, or AjJoUonia, of the Ptolemies. Thanks to its
small harbour well sheltered behind a chain of islets and reefs, Susa at one time
enjoyed considerable importance, as is attested by the remains of monuments still
visible within the circuit of the old walls, and beyond them on a narrow chain of
rocks running eastward. But the port has mostly disappeared, probably through
the effects of a local subsidence, by which the coastline has been considerably modi-
fied. Some old tombs and quarries are now found below the level of the Mediter-
ranean, like the so-called " baths of Cleopatra " at Alexandria.
•
, Ctrexe.
Apollonia, however, never enjoyed an independent existence, having been
merely the marine quarter of the far more famous Cyrene, which stood about 10
miles to the south-west, on the verge of the plateau, whence a view was commanded
of the plains stretching away to the coast. It is ea*fey to imderstand why the
Dorians of Thera, who founded Cyrene " of the Golden Throne " over twenty-five
centuries ago, abandoned their first settlements on the coast and selected this more
elevated inland position, although they had at that time nothing to fear from the
incursions of pirates. From this commanding point they were better able to over-
^ • .
16
NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
awe the populations of the uplands on whom they depended for their supplies ;
here also they found a fertile soil, abundance of timber, and especially a copious
fountain, whence the city itself took its name, and which, like the marine station,
was consecrated to Apollo.
In the eyes of the natives the chief glory of the ruined city is still this peren-
nial source welling up at the foot of the cMs. Hence Krennah, the little-used
Arabic form of Cyrene, has been replaced by the expression Ain-eUi-Shchad, the
"eternal spring," which has also been applied to the surrounding district. Never-
theless the quantity of water has diminished not only since ancient times, but even
since the beginning of the century, as is sufficiently evident from the marks left
Kg. 4. — Cteene.
Scale 1 : 25,000.
Q.\° A%' 2,0" L c of Greenwich
8t°49'30''
1,100 Yards.
on the rock above the present level of the stream. The cliif whence it flows to the
surrounding thickets had been carved into the shape of a wall, on the whito
surface of which are still visible the traces of the roof of a temple, which sheltered
the stream at its outlet in the mountain. The gallery whence it escapes has been
artificially excavated for a distance of about 440 yards ; but Europeans were long
prevented from entering it by the natives, who pretended that it led to a wheel set
with knives continually revolving, and guarding the approach to a treasure.
Besides the great fountain associated with the myth of Cyre, daughter of the
king of the Lapithac, Cyrene possessed other springs, such as that by the Arabs
now called Bu-Gadir, or " Father of Verdure," which flows through a wooded dale
CYEENE. 17
to the nortli-west. On the plateau the colonists also excavated a cistern, one of the
largest and best constructed that have survived from ancient times. On a still
IS NORTH-WEST APEICA.
more elevated terrace south-east of the ruins stands another cistern, that of Safsaf,
which has the form of a canal about 300 yards long. Throughout its entire length
it is faced with enormous slabs measuring nearly 20 feet.
Cyrene, whose name has been apj)lied to the whole region, preserves a few
remains of the monuments erected during its flourishing period, when it held the
Libvans in check, presented a bold front to Egypt, and diffused Greek culture far
and wide throughout the African Continent. Aristotle wrote a history of Cyrene,
which has since been lost, and amongst its famous citizens were such men as the
philosopher Aristippus, the poet Callimachus, and the astronomer Eratosthenes.
Since the time of Pacho, the first European traveller who visited the place in the
present century, the ruins have become less distinct, and many sculptures have been
carried off. But the sites may still be recognised of temples, theatres, the stadium,
colonnades, and the walls enclosing a portion of the plateau, with a circumference of
about 6 miles. Towards the plain the ground occupied by these remains terminates
in escarpments, separated by abrupt and deep ravines. In many places the rock
had been levelled and the intermediate fissures filled in to secure more convenient
foundations for the public buildings. The plateau is traversed by routes still
furrowed by the ruts of chariots.
But what most surjprises the traveller is the vast city of the dead, which encircles
that of the living on the west, east, and south, for a distance of several miles.
Cyrene would appear to have been, above all, a vast necropolis, in this respect
rivalling all other Hellenic towns. The neighbourhood and subsequent sway of
the Egyptians had evidently influenced the Greek settlers, who instead of burning
the dead, buried them in caves and tombs. In certain ra^vines the yawning mouths
of these sepulchral caverns are seen in thousands, and here and there the traces may
still be distinguished of their polychrome decorations.
Most of the tombs rest on crj^pts cut in the limestone cliff, which being of a
porous nature, was easily worked, and thus converted into a vast undergroimd city.
A monastery of the Senusiya brotherhood has even been established in one of the
great mausoleums of Krennah. At the foot of the spurs projecting from Cyrene
on the route to Aj)ollonia, large storehouses had also been excavated in the rock,
which may have afterwards served as tombs. Of the old route itself nothing but
a few traces has survived. Smith and Porcher had k partly restored, or rather
had a new road built for the purpose of transporting the fine sculptures collected
by them for the British Museum. But this work met with little favour from the
natives, who reflected that a good highway gives ready access to troops and to the
tax-collector.
Some 60 miles to the south-west a depression in the plateau about 18 miles long
and from G to 7 broad, is known to the Arabs by the name of Merj. Here nothing
is visible except a solitary palm-tree, serving as a familiar lancbnark to the way-
farer. But on the old lacustrine bed stands the site of the ancient city of Barke,
which was first the Hellenic rival of Cyrene, and afterwards the first in rank of the
" five cities " whence the country received its name of Pcutapolis. It marks the
extreme western point of the continent reached by the Persians under Darius four-
BENGHAZI. 1^
and-twenty centuries ago. The Greek Barke became the Barka of the Arabs, and •
like Cyrene, gave its name to the whole region from the Egyptian frontier to the
Greater Syrtis. Although, unlike its rival, possessing no imposing ruins of the
Hellenic period, it enjoyed great importance during mediaeval times, as the chief
military station for the Arab expeditions between Alexandria and Tunis. At that
time it was the centre of a large trade in provisions and supj)lies of all sorts. But
of those prosperous days Barka has preserved nothing but the ruins of a castle, and
some extensive cisterns, which were needed to husband the water, the place being
destitute of the perennial springs found at Cyrene.
Under the Ptolemies Barka was eclipsed by its marine neighbour, Ptolemais a
name still surviving in the sKghtly modified form of Tolmifah. The town itself
has disappeared, but traces remain of several edifices, and of its enclosures, which
had a circumference of over 4 miles. Other ruins are occupied by the Agail tribe,
a Marabut commimity, which through professional jealousy long resisted the Senu-
siya propaganda, but was at last compelled to yield. Although nearly choked with
sand, the port still affords good shelter to small craft. As far as Benghazi, over
60 miles to the south-west, no other inlet along the coast offers equal facilities for
landing.
The ancient Teukhera, another seaport, which with Cyrene, ApoUonia, Barke,
and Hesperides formed one of the five cities of Pentapolis, has preserved its name
under the Arabic form of Tokra. But the official titles of Arsuioe, and Cleopatris,
by which it was known under the Ptolemies, have long been forgotten. Here are
neither temple nor port, and little beyond a few huts and some tombs in which the
Arabs reside during the summer ; but the walls are amongst the best-preserved
ramparts bequeathed to us by antiquity. Although rebuilt by Justinian, they
stand on far older foundations, several fragments dating from the Macedonian epoch.
These magnificent enclosures are flanked by twenty-four square towers.
Benghazi.
Benghazi is the modern representative of Euhesperides, Hesperides, or Hesperia^
so named probably because it was situated to the west of the region of Cyrenaica.
Later it took the name of Berenice, in honour of the Cyrenian princess married to
Ptolemy Evergetes ; while its present designation comes from a " saint," whc-se
tomb stands on the sea-coast a little to the north.
Benghazi, capital of the province of Barka and of all eastern Tripolitana,
occupies the whole site of the ancient Hesperides, except a portion of the headland
crowned by the castle, which was washed away by the waves, the debris contribut-
ing to fill up the old port. The town lies at the southern extremity of the rocky
promontory enclosed south and west by the sea. Eastwai'&s stretches a salt lake
which, even during the historic period, still formed jDart of the INtediterranean, and
which, in stormy weather, is even now occasionally encroached upon by the waves.
In summer it presents nothing but a muddy bed covered with saline efilorescences.
The isthmus between lake and sea is commanded by an eminence supposed to be
• • •
• • •»
20
NOETH-WEST AFEICA.
the island mentioned by the ancient writers as standing in the middle of the har-
bour and crowned by a temple of Venus, now replaced by the tomb of a Marabut.
Other lakes or morasses stretch north and south, separated from the Mediterranean
by a narrow strip of coastline. Yet Benghazi is less insalubrious than most other
Fig. 6. — Benghazi.
Scale 1 : 30,000.
1 >. of bneenwich 34-° e6'
34° 27-30"
Depths.
fa
SancLs flooded during 0 to 16
northern gales. Feet.
16 to 32
Feet.
32 to 80
Feet.
1.100 Yards.
80 Feet and
upwards.
places on this seaboard, thanks to the winds which carry ofP the miasma rising from
the surrounding lagoons. But the houses swarm with insects, and Benghazi is
proverbially known as the " kingdom of flies."
Being in constant relations with the oases of the interior, whence, till recently.
BENGHAZI. 21
a continuous stream of slaves flowed to this point, the capital of Barka has a very
mixed population, in which the iSTegroes are strongly represented amid the descen-
dants of Berbers and Arabs. The Jews, remarkable for their beauty, also form a
large section of the inhabitants of Benghazi. Settled in the country from a time
anterior to their own traditions, they descend, probably, from those Hebrews who,
under the Ptolemies, emigrated to Berenice with their national constitution and
rulers, and who afterwards became powerful enough to revolt and massacre the
Greeks. Immigrants from Mauritania are also numerously represented in Ben-
ghazi, since the moral conquest of the land has been achieved by the religious order
of the Senusiya, who govern indirectly through the tribal chiefs and Tui'kish
ofl&cials. Lastly, the European colony, chiefly formed of Maltese, Italians and
Greeks, is yearly increasing in importance, already nuanbering about 1,000 in a
total population of 15,000.
Benghazi is no longer the agglomeration of mud and straw huts described by
the few European travellers who visited the place about the beginning of the
century. It now boasts of solid two-storied stone houses, a lighthouse, some
religious edifices, such as mosques, churches, and synagogues. But of the past not
a single trace remains, beyond a few blocks here and there indicating the position
of quays and piers. But from the ground have been recovered valuable sculptures,
vases, inscriptions, medals, a large share of which was secured for the Louvre by
the explorer Yattier de Bourville. Recently a few improvements have been made in
the port, which, however, during the last two thousand years has become less extensive,
more exposed, and shallower. Yessels drawing over 7 feet can no longer enter the har-
bour, and in winter the Benghazi waters are almost entirely abandoned by shipping.
But in spite of these disadvantages the town has made great commercial pro-
gress, especially with France. It imports cottons, sugar, wine, timber ; but its
former export trade in ivory, gold-dust, and ostrich feathers has been mostly
replaced by live stock and cereals to Malta, wool, butter, hides, salt from the sur-
rounding lagoons, and sponges from the shallows along the neighbouring seaboard.
The sj)onges are now seldom gathered by divers, the Greek and Italian fishers now
usually employing diving-bells in this industry.
The Benghazi district is generally very fertile, especially along the north coast,
which curves round towards Tokra. But it is still so thinly inhabited that the land
is at the disposition of the first comer. A palm-grove, the only one occurring gn
the coast of Cyrenaica west of Derna, occupies a portion of the peninsula north of
the town, and the lakes are skirted by a few gardens, which require special cultiva-
tion in order to obtain good crops of fruit and vegetables. The surface soil is first
removed and matting laid down, after which the mould is replaced, mixed with
manure. The matting is supposed to prevent the saline particles from rising to
the vegetable humus, while also serving to retain the fertiMsing substances.
Farther east some old quarries and natural cavities have been reclaimed and
cultivated by the peasantry. These plots resemble the " gardens of the Hesper-
ides " sjjoken of by Scylax, and those that still exist in the neighbourhood of Syra-
cuse. Some of the chasms are flooded, either temporarily after the rains, or
^2 NOETH-WEST APEICA.
permanently from perennial springs. About five miles east of the town an under-
ground rivulet flows through a deep gallery, which may be reached by a large
drain and followed for some distance. This mysterious stream is the famous
Lathon or Lethe, the " river of obUvion," seen for a moment and then disappearing
for ever. Nevertheless a rivulet flows from these hidden waters through a fissure
in the rock to the shallow lake stretching east of Benghazi. This swampy lagoon
is itself famous in legendary lore. According to Pindar, Strabo, Lucan, and the
unknown authors of " Peutinger's Table," it is a lake Triton or Tritonis, like that
situated west of the SjTtes.
Beyond Benghazi the coast continues to trend first towards the south-west, then
south and south-east, before describing the long semicircular curve which forms
the gulf of the Great Syrtis. Along the shores of this vast southern basin of the
Mediterranean no towns or habitations are met, beyond a few groups of hovels and
Bedouin encampments. Not even the ruins have survived of AJabia, which, in
mediajval times, was a populous and flourishing place as an outport for the products
of the oases. The coast, especially in the neighbourhood of Benghazi, is defended
by a considerable number of little forts, some mere towers of Arab construction,
others old bastions built of Cyclopean blocks. These form square enclosures
rounded off at the angles, and filled inside with earth, so that the wall forms a sort
of breastwork for the defenders. Beyond it is a deep moat, with bold counterscarp,
cut in the live rock, all e\idently defensive works erected by civilised peoples in
pre- Mussulman times.
A few cultivated tracts, which become continually rarer the farther we advance
from the capital of Barka, alternate with the grassy steppes and saline pools skirted
by swampy margins. Low hills scored with ravines, the haunts of jackals and
hyenas, project in headlands seawards. Here and there the coast is frirlged with
reefs, while elsewhere sandy dunes line the open beach. Not a single palm raises
its leafy stem above these dreary, surf-beaten wastes, which are the terror of the
mariner. Here the only haven is the little port of Braiga, formed by a chain of
reefs, and visited by a few vessels engaged in the sulphur trade. This mineral is
collected some distance inland, south of the extreme southern bend of the gulf, which
is sometimes known as " Sulphur Bay." In the same neighbourhood is a saline
lake, whose level has been reduced by evaporation below that of the Mediterranean.
< At Mukhtar, the point where the road from the mines reaches the coast, a few
heaps of stones serve to mark the frontier between the Benghazi district and
Tripolitana, properly so called. Near here, according to the commentators, if the
story is not altogether fabulous, took place the famous meeting between the young
Cyrenian and Carthaginian runners, who, starting from their respective territories
at the same time, were to fix the frontier at the place of meeting. But the two
brothers Philccni, who represented the interests of Carthage, fraudulently gained
an imfair advantage in the race, and having to choose between death on the spot
and a fresh contest, preferred to be buried alive imdcr the monument erected to
mark the common limit between the two states. Henceforth the shrine of the
Philani became a hallowed spot for the Carthaginians.
CHAPTER 11.
THE AUJILA OASES.
ROM tlie crest of the Jebel Akhdar tlie land falls southwards, not in a
gradual slope, but rather through a succession of terraces, or terraced
plains intersected by wadies, whose beds were excavated by the
running waters at a time when the cKmate was more humid than at
present. But besides the traces of ancient rivers, here may also be
seen those of a marine inlet, which may be regarded as the natural limit of the
land of Barka in the direction of the Libyan desert. "West of the Siwah and
Faredgha oases, both studded with " bitter lakes," which were also old arms of the
sea, the valley probably still continues at a lower level than that of the Mediter-
ranean. The ground is here covered by myriads of shells of thQ oyster, pecten,
urchin, and other marine fossils. The old level of the plain eroded by the waters
is here and there indicated by isolated eminences surrounded by sand.
This depression, known to the Arabs by the name of Gerdoba, is interrupted by
the high dunes of Rhat. But if the preliminary measurements taken by Rohlfs
and his associates can be trusted, it begins again farther west under the form of a
winding wady, which is connected with the oases of Jalo and Aujila. The level of
these depressions varies, according to Rohlfs, from 100 to 170 feet below the sea-
East of the group of oases the broadest valley, known specially as the " wady,"
presents a general direction from south to north and north-west, probably merging
in the Bir Rassam, another marine bed, which Rohlfs found to be from 330
to 350 feet below the Great Syrtis. Here the groimd is abundantly strewn with
fossil plants, especially palms and the mastic, forming extensive " petrified forests '*
like those of Egypt.
At the point where the Bir Rassam depression was crossed by the German
traveller, it turns north-westwards, probably to form a junction near its old mouth
with the Wady Fareg, another dried-up basin which, according to the Arabs, is a
five days' journey long. Its mouth, now closed by dunes or, perhaps, rocky
hills, is indicated by the Ain Kebrit, a place nearly 120 miles south of
Benghazi. The Wady Fareg is usually regarded as the line of demarcation
between the habitable lands and the desert. Travellers for the first time ascending
the southern escarpment are expected to treat their companions to the " feast of
24
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
the valley ^ " otherwise the caravan folk heap the surrounding stones into a cairn to
serve as the tomb of the niggard. This is a kind of " anathema " analogous to that
raised hj the Greek peasantry against the tax-gatherer.
Thus limited southwards by the Wady Fareg, the Bir Rassam, the Wady of the
Aujila oases, Gerdoba and Siwah, the limestone plateau of Cyrenaica and Mar-
marica would seem to form a large island almost detached from the rest of the
continent. There can be no doubt that the whole of this depression of the wadies
and oases was formerly flooded with the Mediterranean waters. After their
separation from the sea by intervening strips of coastlands, the marine basins
gradually evaporated under the fierce sun of Africa. But the waters have left
clear traces of their existence in the banks of recent shells, the deposits of salt,
gypsum, saltpetre, magnesia, and numerous "bitter lakes." Thus from one
extremity to the other of the Gulf of Sidra, there is an exact paralleKsm in the
Fig. 7. — Regions South of "Baeka ltdtg below the Level of the Mediterbatteait.
Scale 1 : 8,000,000.
29'
^ejaboub ,
50'
•ao'iArf
hkereh
Auj'?«.
Baitifa^
^.SiiW^S^
.PO'
L V qT yreenwich
86°
Tracts below the level of the Mediterranean, according to the Survey of 1869.
^-^— ^^— ^^^ 120 Miles.
physical aspect and relief of the several regions, and in the natural phenomena of
which they have been the scene. On both sides low-lying tracts stretch far inland,
some of which lie below sea-level, and are supposed to have formed marine inlets at
sqme more or less remote period. It has been proposed to convert both basins into
an " inland sea," through which the Mediterranean waters might penetrate into the
interior of the continent. After his first explorations in the Libyan oases, Rohlfs
thought that by simply piercing the riverain sill on the Gulf of Sidra, it might be
possible to flood a large part of the continent as far as the Kufra oasis, under the
22 north latitude, " whereby the largest vpssels might reach Fozzan, perhaps even
the oasis of AVajanga." •■ But more recent surveys have shown that the geographical
changes produced by these projects would be far less important than was supposed ;
in any case, the results of more accurate measurements must be awaited before
there can be any question of creating an " inland sea."
TOPOGEAPHY. 25
Topography,
In the part of the territory lying south of the Barka plateau, there are neither
towns nor permanent villages, except in the group of oases occupying the depres-
sions in the desert below the level of the Mediterranean. In a bee-line the
distance is at least 130 miles between the Aujila oases and the point on
the Gulf of Sidra where formerly stood Ajabia, the old outlet for the caravan
trade of the interior. The track usually followed by caravans across the desert still
reaches the coast at the same point. On an average, travellers take about ten days
to cover the distance between Aujila and the seaboard. During the journey they
have to traverse vast soKtudes, " where even the flea forsakes the wajrfarer," and
where the only procurable water is a nauseous and brackish fluid often refused by
the camel itself. In many places the traces of preceding caravans are soon covered
by the sands. Here the only indication of the proper route to follow are the so-
called allems, or heaps of stones raised at intervals as landmarks. On the eastern
route, towards the Faredgha oasis, the sands conceal the dried bodies of forty
travellers, who perished of thirst after being abandoned by their guide.*
The eastern oasis of Aujila, which during the Hellenic epoch gave its name to
the whole group, is neither the largest nor the most populous. Some 12 miles long
with a breadth of little over half a mile, it is developed in the form of a crescent
with its convex side facing eastwards. A soKtary spring, as in the time of
Herodotus, wells up in this depression, which is enclosed on all sides by the stony
terraces of the serirs.
The Jalo oasis, which occupies the centre of the group, is perhaps ten times
more extensive than that of AujUa ; it is about the same length, but in some places
has a width of from 6 to 7 miles. But it is absolutely destitute of fresh water,
possessing nothing but a saline fluid, which serves to irrigate the palm groves ;
hence all the drinking water has to be brought from the almost uninhabited oasis
of the wady lying farther east. The western part of the group of oases is the
most thickly peopled, and in proportion to its extent Aujila is one of the most
densely inhabited districts in the whole world. Jalo presents extensive waste
spaces and ranges of dunes interrupting its palm groves.
Batofl or Battifal, Ipng to the south-east, at the southern extremity of the
wady, forms a badly watered depression, dotted with a few camping- grounds, an'd
fringed with reeds on which the camels browse. But beyond this point the whole
zone of eastern depressions has been abandoned, except the small oasis of Leshkerreh,
which is isolated amid the moving sands. Vegetables raised in the gardens of the
oases, cereals, and dates, form the chief food of the inhabitants, who however also
keep a few flocks of sheep and goats, some poultry and pigeons. But they have
neither asses nor oxen, and not more than half a dozen horses. The dog, although
rare, is not unknown in the country.
The tribes occupying the Aujila oases do not belong all to one stock. The
Wajili, who claim to be aborigines, and who descend perhaps from the Nasamons
* Kohlfs, " Von Tripolis nach Alexandrien, " ii., p. 68.
AFRICA I. ^
I >
>
23 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
mentioned by Herodotus, still speak a Berber dialect closely related to the Tamasirht
of the Tiiaregs. Inhabiting the western oasis and the part of Jalo which surrounds
Lehhn, the capital, they are engaged chiefly in agriculture. They also work the
saline beds of the neighbouring depressions, for in these old marine inlets salt is
everywhere found, associated with gypsimi. They have an excellent breed of
camels, which they hire to the caravans, conducting them along the desert routes
as far as Benghazi, Murzuk, Siwah, and Kufra.
The Mojabras, who also claim Berber descent, although now speaking Arabic,
dwell in the eastern part of the oases, and especially in the district of El-Areg in
the Jalo depression. This tribe despise agriculture, but, like the people of Gha-
dames, they are born traders, and like them also have founded commercial centres
Fig. 8. — Geoup of the Aujila Oases.
Scale 1 : 900,000.
98
50-
Bitldjoy
^^JB^ Sibil
2l*iQ-
12 Miles.
throughout all the Libyan oases. Travellers praise their courage, temperance, and
perfect honesty. According to Burckhart, to them is due the discovery of the route
leading from the coast through Kufra and "Wajanga to "Wadai.
The little Lcshkerreh oasis is inhabited by the Zwiyas (Swayas), a tribe of
Arab origin. But whatever the differences in speech and race, Mojabras, "Wajilis
and Zwiyas all closely resemble each other phj'sically ; and their almost black com-
plexion attests the importance taken by the Negro element in the crossings of the
races. The marriage tie is very lax amongst the inhabitants of Aujila. According
to Hamilton, men are not unfrcquently met who have successively contracted
twenty or thirty unions, the price of a bride varying from twenty-five to thirty
shillings. But the establishment of the austere Senusiya sect in the coimtry cannot
TOPOGEAPHY.
27
fail to effect a reformation in this respect, by rendering divorces less frequent, and
restricting the consumption of palm wine.
The trade of the Aujila oases with the states of the interior, and especially with
Wadai and Dar-Fur, appears to have acquired some expansion since the route of
the Nile has been closed by the revolt of the Egj^tian Sudanese. In 1855 the
traffic between Aujila and Wadai was completely suspended for some years in con-
sequence of the action of some Maltese traders, who, at the instigation, as was said,
of the Pasha of Tripoli, attacked a caravan near Aujila, killed several persons, and
carried off thirty captives. It was to avenge this outrage that the Sultan of Wadai
put Yogel to death, vowing at the same time to slay all Christian travellers falling
into his hands.
The religious order of the Senusiya virtually rules throughout the oases, but the
official representative of authority is a mudir who resides in the Jalo oasis, and who
issues his mandates in the name of the Governor of Benghazi. His power is limited
to the levying of taxes, the various Wajili, Mojabra, and Zwiya tribes, to the number
of twenty, enjoying local independence in all communal matters. When Pacho
visited the Jalo oasis, the authority was in the hands of an old French drummer,
who had escaped from the Egyptian expedition, and who after a series of remarkable
adventures at last found himself at the head of a petty state surrounded by the
wilderness, and forgotten by his fellow-countrymen.
CHAPTER III.
THE KUFRA OASES.
I HE archipelago of green oases forming the Kufra group, lost amid
the sands and rocks of the Libyan desert, is one of the least acces-
sible regions in the whole of Africa. Hence it remained unknown
to modern explorers till the close of the last century ; nor is it at all
certain that it formed a part of the world known to the ancients,
although undoubtedly inhabited by relatively ci\-ilised commimities. Hornemann
was the first to hear of these oases during his visit to Aujila. But neither
Hamilton nor Beurmaun, who attempted to penetrate to the mysterious land, were
able to procure guides willing to accompany them ; and when in 1874 Rohlfs,
Zittel, and Jordan started from the Dakhal oasis on the direct route for Kufra, with
the compass as their only guide, they were compelled to abandon the project after
a six day's march. Although followed by a whole convoy of camels laden with
iron water-tanks, they were obliged to turn northwards in the direction of Siwah.
Here they had the advantage of a relatively easy route between parallel chains of
sand-hills ; whereas in the direction of Kufra, for a distance of 240 miles, they would
have had successively to cross a series of shifting dunes ranging in altitude from
350 to 500 feet.
In 1S79 Rohlfs, penetrating from the Aujila oasis southwards, at last succeeded
in reaching Kufra, where, however, he ran a great risk of being massacred, with all
his followers. From the last encampment in the Jalo oasis at the Battifal wells to
the first springs in the Kufra district, the whole distance is no less than 210 miles.
But the track does not follow a straight line, and, especially in the night, caravans
often retrace their steps. The route taken by Rohlfs is estimated at 240 miles, a
space of absolutely desert land, covered by an uninterrupted march of 106 hours.
The surface of the plateau comprised between the two groups of oases presents
nothing but a narrow zone of dunes at its southern extremity, while towards the
centre it is intersected by a bahr bela-ma, a " waterless river," or depression
destitute of vegetation, which was so little noticed by Rohlfs that he mentions it
only on the report of the natives.
Nearly the whole space traversed by him consists of scrirs, stony plateaux
jx'rfectly uniform in appearance, and strewn with a fine grit which looked almost
THE KUFEA OASIS. 29
like a mass of petrified lentils. Not a single well affords refreshment to caravans
in this frightful solitude, and the inhabitants of Kufra take care that none are
sunk. They are anxious to keep aloof from the rest of the "world, for they are a
" feeble folk," probably less than a thousand souls altogether, and they would have
long ago lost their independence had the Turkish troops been able easily to reach
the depression.
But although wTongly marked on many maps as included in the government of
TripoHtana, the Kufra oases have none the less been conquered by a foreign power,
that of the Senusiya brotherhood. Through their religious propaganda, the Algerian
Khwans have become the true masters of the district ; and were the mother-house at
Jarabub threatened by any Christian or Osmanli forces advancing from the coast, they
would endeavour to establish the centre of their power farther inland, in their great
Zawya of El-Istat. At the time of his visit, Rohlfs had ample opportunity of
observing how absolute was their authority in the place. Threatened by them, he
escaped with his life only by flight ; but as soon as he found himself protected by a
formal order of the Mahdi of Faredgha, he commanded the homage of all, and his
property was strictly respected.
The Kufra oases do not lie below sea-level, as was supposed when the series of
depressions was discovered which stretches from the Egyptian oases to the Gulf of
Sidra. From the Aujila oasis, which stands below the Mediterranean, the ground
rises imperceptibly towards the Taiserbo oasis, the northernmost of the Kufra group,
where it already attains an elevation of 830 feet. Kababo, southernmost of the
same group, is 1,300 feet high, and the land probably continues to rise in the
southern desert as far as the Wajanga oasis, "While an ocean of shifting sands
rolls away to the north and north-east, dunes are everjn^here rare in the Kufra
district, except towards the centre, where they enclose the Buseima oasis. West
and south they disappear completely, and here is everj^where visible either the bare
rock or the marshy soil constituting the ground of the oases.
The hills rising abruptly above the palm groves and the surrounding steppes
consist of masses of Nubian sandstones and limestones overlaid with lavas.
Separated one from the other, these hills appear to be the remains of a formerly
continuous plateau, which has been mostly weathered or eroded by running waters,
lea^dng nothing but detached fragments as proofs of its former existence. They
are of almost uniform height, except that the ideal plain connecting all tlie
summits, and probably coinciding with the ancient surface of the jalateau, gradually
ascends in the direction from north to south.
Rohlfs nowhere discovered any fossiliferous rocks, but the sand contains a large
nvmiber of vitrified tubes, products either of electric discharges or of organic secre-
tions. Here and there the surface is also strewn with round sandstone masses of
all sizes, producing the effect as if the plain were some vast arsenal stored with
shells, balls, and bullets of all kinf's. Of these concretions some are hoUow, while
others have a solid core or are filled with loose sand.
Good water exists in superabimdance in the Kufra oases, and may be everj^where
reached by sinking wells to a depth of from 3 to 10 feet. In this respect Kufra is
30 NORTH-WEST AFEICA.
favourably distinguished from nearly all the Libyan oases. This abundance of
Fig. 9.— The Kitfra Oa.sis.
moisture seems surprising in a region where some years pass without any rains.
FLOEA AND FAUNA— INHABITANTS. 31
But it may be presumed that the highlands lying to the south of the plateau are
sufficiently elevated to intercept the moisture-bearing clouds.
All the oases, except perhaps that of Sirhen (Zighen), situated in the north-east
of the district, have in the centre either a lake, or at least a marshy sebkha, where
is collected the overflow of the surface waters. Lake Buseima, in the oasis of like
name, even presents from a distance the appearance of a highland lacustrine basin.
Commanded by the crested escarpments of the surrounding cliffs, and reflecting in
its\)lue waters an isolated crag of pyramidal form, it winds through the palm groves
for a distance of about 6 miles. The saHne efflorescences around its shores, where
the columns of air whirl in incessant eddies, resemble the foamy crests of the waves
breaking on the beach. Near the margin of all the lakes and saKne marshes wells
may be simk which yield fresh water, and the soil is everywhere clothed with an
arborescent and grassy vegetation at least sufficient to afford pasturage for the
camels.
Flora axd Faixa.
Although distinguished from most other groups of oases in the desert by the
wealth of their vegetation, those of Kufra present but a limited number of forms-
A single species, such as the alfa, the tamarisk, acacia, or talka, covers extensive
tracts, stretching for many square miles beyond the horizon. Eohlf 's explorations,
interrupted, however, too suddenly to have ^idelded all the results that might have been
expected, discovered only thirty-nine species, of which twenty-six were cultivated
plants. One of the characteristic features of the flora of Kufra is the multitude of
wild figs, which form dense thickets infested by countless snakes. These reptiles,
which are not poisonous, have the habit of coiling round the branches of fig and date
trees, and watching with head erect for the little birds coming to perch within their
reach. But they are preyed upon in turn by other birds, which appear to be
specially characteristic of the avifaima of Kufra.
On the marshy tracts wild duck and geese swarm in myriads ; a few storks are
also seen in the neighbourhood of the waters, and the oases are visited by flocks of
migrating swallows. Gazelles are rare, except in the Erbehna oasis, towards the
south-west of the group ; but multitudes of little rodents are met, as well as certain
species of lizards, spiders, and termites. As in the Aujila district, snails are
nowhere to be seen in Kufra. ,
IXHABITAXTS.
The term Kufra, derived from Kafir, is explained to mean " Land of the Un-
believer." At the same time, it no longer deserves the title since the first half of
the eighteenth century-, when the pagan Tibbus were expelied by the Mohammedan
Zwiyas. This tribe reached the Kufra territory mostly from the Leshkerreh oasis, and
still maintain friendly relations with their fellow-countrymen of the Aujila group.
The Tibbus at present seen in the country are barely tolerated, and would appear
to be found only in the southern oasis,, where they form a distinct communitj'',
32 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
confined to a solitary hamlet. Numerous structures, however, attest the former
presence of these ancient inhabitants, as well as of their forefathers or precursors,
the Garamantes.
Numerous worked flints also afford proof of a prehistoric period in this Libyan
region analogous to that of the Stone Age in Europe. On the crest of the Jebel
Buseima, an ancient village has been so well preserved that the cabins might be
again rendered inhabitable by simply spreading a roof of palm-branches above the
circular walls. The posterns, defensive towers, and outer ramparts all remain just
as they were originally constructed. The rocky eminence rising in the middle of
Lake Buseima is also crowned with a citadel of the same tj'pe as those erected by
the former inhabitants of the country. There are even some ancient burial- groimds,
which the Mohammedans suffer to be profaned with impunity, the bodies, deposited
in a sitting attitude, being those of ''reprobate Kafirs."
The Zwiya Arabs, now masters of the land by right of conquest, claim to be
amongst the most zealous disciples of the Prophet since they have accepted the
teachings of the Senusiya brotherhood. A Zwij-a sheikh will never present himself
before the people of his tribe except on horseback, shaded by an umbrella, bearing
a falcon on a small cushion, and followed by a greyhound. He is always armed
with a long matchlock provided with a rusty bayonet. The Zwiyas leave to the
despised Tibbus of the southern village the use of their primitive weapons, such as
the long heavy iron club tipped with steel, which describes a whirling motion in
its flight through the air.
Topography.
The Kufra group comprises five chief oases, of which the most important, if not
the largest, is Taiserbo, in the north-west. Here Jmngedi, the old capital, and
residence of the Tibbu sultans, is still crowned by the remains of a castle built with
blocks of salt. The name of Kufra, now applied to the whole territory, appears to
have been originally restricted to Taiserbo alone. But the political pre-eminence
of this oasis caused its name to be extended to all the other members of the group,
although Ipng at a mean distance of about 60 miles from each other. Sirhen, in
the north-east, is almost iminhabited, and here the Zwiyas have not even planted
date-palms, although extensive groves might soon be developed with a little culti-
vation. Nevertheless, it forms a very important caravan station, thanks to the
excellent pasturage it affords for camels.
Buseima, in the centre of the group, is noted for its lake, and for the Jebel
Buseima, Jebel Sirhen, and Jebel Nari ranges enclosing it on the north, north-east,
and south, respectively. The latter, under various names, and interrupted at several
points, develops a total length of about 120 miles in the direction from east to
west.
In the south-west, Erbehna is about the same size and presents analogous
features to those of Buseima, consisting, like it, of a circular zone of palms enclosing
a lake, which is dominated northwards by the abrupt escarpments of a mountain
TOPOGRAPHY.
33
range. Lastly, in the soutli-east, stretches the largest member of the group, the
crescent- shaped and evergreen Kebabo, which has a total length of no less than 120
miles. Here is concentrated nearly the whole population of Kufra, and about the
middle of the oasis has been founded the village of Jof, or the "hollow," which has
now become the largest agglomeration of huts in this region of Africa. Here
also stands the monastery where reside the masters of the land. The Zamja-el-Itat,
or " Convent of Purity," presents the aspect of a fortress. Above its lofty white
Fig. 10. — KuFEA Oasis.
Scale 1 : 3,400,000.
2ff
24'
-Vf«i-i;L'..---"
vvnv-
QS
Q4'
21'
E... of G
reenwicr
24-'
Limits of vegetation.
-___— ^— 60 Miles.
walls, which are strong enough to sustain a siege, nothing is visible except the roofs
of the terraced houses. But no longer dreading an open attack, the Senusiya
brethren, who reside within the enclosure to the number of two himdred and fifty,
nearly all in separate cells, have laid out garden plots beyond the precincts. Close
to the convent itself they have planted an orchard several acres in extent, where are
cultivated nearly all the fruit-trees of the Tripolitana q^ses. Of the million of
date-palms owned by them in the Kufra territory, nearly a third were received from
the piety of the faithful.
CmiPTER IV.
THE GREAT SYRTIS AND TRIPOLITANA SEABOARD.
TIE maritime region of Tripoli, bounded east by tbe extreme bend of
the Great Syrtis, west by the southern headlands of the Tunisian
coast, forms a distinct territory both in an administrative and geo-
graphical sense. The belt of coastlands, varying in width, and
intersected by a thousand mostly dry wadies draining to the Medi-
terranean, is dominated south and south-west either by chains of rocky hills and
mountains, or by the rugged scarp of a plateau which runs mainly parallel with
the shores of the Syrtes. This zone constitutes Tripolitana in the stricter sense of
the term.
The vilayet of the same name also comprises the portion of the plateau stretch-
ing through Ghadames south-westwards to the Algerian frontier. But this forms
a separate geographical area, sloping, not seawards but towards the west, in the
direction of the Sahara. In the south yet another natural region is formed by the
scattered oases of Fezzan, separated from the Mediterranean basin bj' hills, plateaux,
and vast desert wastes. Excluding Cyrenaica, Fezzan, Ghadames, and Rhat, and
disregarding administrative divisions, the surface of Tripolitana, within the water-
parting between the marine and inland basins, may be approximately estimated at
110,000 square miles, with a total population of probably not more than 650,000,
or about six persons to the square mile.
General Survey.
Farther removed from Europe than Mauritania, and possessing but a small
extent of arable lands, the seaboard of Tripolitana coidd never have developed much
commercial life throughout the historic period. Vessels doubling the projecting
headlands of Numidia and Cyrenaica, and sailing southwards, found the desert in
many places already cncrbaching on the marine waters. For some hundreds of
miles the coast is low and sandy, or else fringed with reefs, while swamps and
lagoons stretch far inland, separated from the sea by narrow strips of coastlands.
These are often scarcely to be distinguished from the surface of the water, and the
Syrtes were especially dreaded by mariners, owing to their surf-beaten shores, the
GENEEAL SUEVEY.
35
exhalations from the surrounding lagoons, and the savage character of the local
tribes.
The scanty population of Tripolitana, its slight share in the general commercial
movement of the IMediterranean, the trifling revenue yielded to its political rulers,
show that during the last two thousand years the country has remained in a more
or less stagnant state. Its importance has in fact diminished on the seaboard,
where great cities formerly flourished, and in the regions traversed by the main
highways to the interior. ■
The exploration, one might almost say the discovery, of Tripolitana, remains
still to be achieved. Although since the journey of Hornemann in the last century,
the country has been visited by such men as Lyon and Ritchie, Denham, Oudney
Fig. 11.— EouTES OF THE Chxef Exploeees in- Teipolita>-a.
Scale 1 : 12,000,000.
^
j::.'^
^•
#
> «.
%j "JDouNolje"
TK
^ (^
\ iw
■ ^ f
..-B....J29'
"•-•-. ^'Zells
E . of Gr.
Depths.
0 to 320
Feet.
L.,Lyon.
D. & C.. Denham and Clapperton.
Rch., RichardsoD.
Dick., Dickson.
320 to 3,200
Feet.
3,200 Feet and
upwards.
v., VogA. R., Eotlfs.
Bt. &. O , Earth and Ovenveg. X., Xachtigil
Duv., Duveyrier. B., Beurmann.
M. & Va., Mercher and Vattone. Lg., Largeau
110 Miles.
By., Bary.
Br , Bruce.
Cp., Camperio,
Be., Beeehey.
and Clapperton, Laing, Richardson, Baith, Yogel, Beurmann, Duveyrier, Mercher
and Yattone, Rohlfs, Xachtigal, Yon Bary and Krafft, these explorers, startmg
mostly from Tripoli, have neglected many interesting districts in the interior ;
while little has yet been done for the geology, meteorology, ethnology, and
archaeology of the land.
In our days the earth has already become too small for the restless spirit of
modern enterprise, and certain geographical conditions, with which the ancients,
confined to the marine highways, had no need to occupy tliemselves, have acquired
quite a new significance. The very break in the coastline which serves to cut off
the plains of Tripoli from European influence, has become an advantage for the
communications with the interior. However otherwise inconvenient, the harbours
of Tripolitana are the natural points of departure for the caravans proceeding to
86 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
Western Sudau. Thanks to the gulf of the two SjTtes, which forms a bight in
the contour of the continent of a mean depth of about 300 miles, the journey-
across the desert to the fertile regions of the interior is reduced by one-fourth.
Moreover the route from Tripoli to Lake Tsad, which lies due south, is relatively
easy, being relieved at tolerably short intervals by the Fezzan and other oases.
Neither the hiUs nor the dunes present any serious difficulties to modern engineers,
while the scattered popidations of the oases, long familiar with their European
visitors, would certainly oppose no obstacle to the construction of highways of
communication. " To the future master of TripoH belongs the Sudan," exclaims
the traveller G. Rohlfs, when urging Italy to take possession of Tripolitana. He
proposes, either from the port of Tripoli or from that of Braiga, at the head of the
Great Syrtis, to construct a railway in the direction of Kuka, near the west coast
of Lake Tsud. Even this line might perhaps be shortened by about 120 miles by
creating a harbour in deep water on the west side of the Syrtis, somewhere near
the Marsa-Zafran creek.
Not only is this the shortest route for the line destined one day to connect the
basin of the Mediterranean with that of the great inland lake, but it also seems to
be the most convenient for the continental trunk line, terminating on the Atlantic
coast at the head of the Gulf of Guinea, between the Niger and Congo basins.
Hence there can be no doubt that the railway penetrating from Tripolitana south-
wards must sooner or later become one of the great commercial highways of the
world. But even this can scarcely exceed in importance the more westerly route,
which is intended to connect the already developed network on the Algerian coast
through the Wed-Messaura with the great bend described by the Niger below
Timbuktu. In this direction both termini would offer an immense advantage in
respect of population, abimdance of natural resources, and commercial acti\4ty.
Here also it would be a mere question of continuing lines either already opened, or
for which concessions have been granted south of Algeria to a more southern
latitude than Tripoli.
Physical Features.
The Tripolitana highlands take their rise eastwards in an unexplored region of
the desert, where the Haruj-el-Aswad, or Black Haruj, so called from the colour
of its lavas, forms a chain of volcanic origin with a mean direction from south-east
to north-west. Hitherto Hornemann is the only traveller who has crossed the
eastern section of this range, although nearly a century has lapsed since his visit.
More recent explorers have only seen these mountains from a distance, or heard of
them from native report.
The Black Iluruj, which is also covered with much reddish scoria, lighter than
the black lavas, consists of small low ridges and isolated peaks ^ath abrupt sides
furrowed by deep fissures and crevasses. These hills, which have a mean elevation
of 650 feet above the plateau, itself about 2,000 feet above sea-level, are perhaps
the volcanoes which formerly lit up the shores of the Mediterranean or of the lakes
PHYSICAL FEATURES.
37
stretched at their foot. But the system is also largely composed of the sandstone
and limestone formations, which have been pierced by the eruptive lavas. South
of the Black Haruj stretches an extensive calcareous hamada, or plateau, terminat-
ing north-east of the Murzuk depression in a group of cliffs and hills known as
the Haruj -el- Abiad, or " White Haruj." Here, according to the Arab reports, are
found the perfect skeletons of large marine animals.
Beyond the pass, which affords communication between the Zella and Fogha
Fig. 12. — Peojected Railways aceoss West Afeica.
Bcale 1 : 41,000,000.
Lines opened.
=i Tines in progress or conceded.
Several projected lines.
600 Miles.
oases on the northern and southern slopes respectively, the Haruj -el- As wad is
continued westwards by the Jebel-es-Soda, or "Black Moimtains," already by
Pliny designated by the synonymous expression, Mons j^ter. According to the
explanation of the Roman encyclopaedist, this appellation, which has persisted for
at least two thou.sand years, is due to the appearance of these uplands, which look
as if blackened by fire, although, when lit up by the solar rays, they seem to be
wrapped in flame.
38 NORTH-WEST Af^RICA.
The Black Mountains, the highest range in south Tripolitana, follow the
normal direction from east to west, while describing a slight curve with its convex
side facing northwards. It is divided into two sections of different aspect by a
broad breach, or as Duveyrier describes it, "a continuous series of ravines,"
traversed by the caravan route between Murzuk and the Jofra oasis. The very-
names given to each of these sections of the range — Soda Sherkiyah and Soda
Gharbiyah — indicate theii- respective positions east and west of this commercial
highway. The Soda Sherkiyah, or " Eastern Soda," stands at but a slight elevation
above the limestone plateau ; whereas the " "Western Soda " attains considerable
altitudes, the Kalb-Warkau, one of its simimits, having a height of 3,000 feet,
according to some authorities. At its western extremity, where it merges in the
great stony hamada known as the Hamada-el-Homra, or " Red Plateau," the
Nabcr-el- Jrug, another of its peaks, is even said to be 4,330 feet high. According
to Rohlfs, who, however, was unable to take any accurate measurements in the
Jebel-es-Soda, there are also in the eastern section of the system other crests
reaching an altitude of 5,000 feet.
The statement of Hornemann, that the Jebel-es-Soda is to a large extent of
volcanic origin, has been fully confirmed by Duveyrier, who has brought back
fragments of a basaltic lava, which the geologist Descloizeaux regards as coming
very probably from an ancient submarine eruption.
Various spurs branch off northwards from the main range, sinking gradually
down to the low-lying coastlands. Several other projections have also become
completely isolated from the rest of the system. Such, for instance, are those
running towards the Jofra oasis, where they rise from 650 to 880 feet above the
wady, which has itself a mean elevation of about 650 feet above the sea. The
Lokhmani, one of these isolated groups, is clothed with palm groves half way
up its sides.
North of the oasis the plain is dominated by the Jebel-Tar, a moimtain mass
completely distinct from the Soda range, and consisting of tertiary formations
which contain thick fossiliferous beds. But its moderate elevation, not exceeding
1,330 feet, is not sufiicient to arrest the moisture-bearing clouds, so that on the
slopes of the Jebel-Tar nothing is found except springs of bitter water. In
memory of the explorer Nachtigal, who has done such excellent work in the
Sa'nara and Sudan, his friend Ilohlfs has given to the culminating point of the Tar
system the appellation of Jebel Bulbxil, or " Mount Nightingale" (Nachtigal).
West and north-west of the Jebel-es-Soda stretches the interminable *' Red
Plateau," whose superficial area is estimated at some 40,000 square miles. From
north to south, where it was traversed by Barth in 1850, between Tripoli and
Muzurk, it is over 120 miles long, while extending through the Tinghert plateau
for 420 miles east and west to the south of the Ghadames oases and of the region of
Algerian dunes. This Ilamada-el-IIomra is of all the African •* hamadas " the hamada
in a superlative sense — the " burnt" region which, owing to the absence of water, is
most dreaded by caravans. On the edge of the cliff leading to it, each wayfarer
religiously casts a stone on the busaffar, or " father of the journey," a cairn or
PHYSICAL FEATUEES. 39
pyramid of propitiation raised from century to century by successive generations of
travellers.
Herbage, brushwood, and living things are rare in this desolate waste, which is
avoided by the very birds, that fear to wing their way across solitudes more
formidable than the seas themselves. Nevertheless camels find here and there a
little nourishment in the scanty vegetation offered by a few dejjressions along the
track across the plateau. Barth even came upon some stunted palms in one of
these hollows, where the water collected after the rare storms soon evaporates,
leaving nothing in its place except a thin saline efilorescence. In many places
channels have been formed by the wadies, although the running waters have not
been sufficiently copious to excavate a complete river bed in the rock, so that
beyond the last basin of erosion the depression is again closed.
The plateau is on the whole remarkably level and uniform, free alike from
stones and sand. In altitude it varies scarcely more than 150 feet, from 1,500 to
1,650, the highest point along the route followed by Barth being 1,700 feet, and
indicated at a distance by a heap of stones. At first sight the surface of the ground
might seem to be formed of basaltic slabs, so black and parched is its appearance.
But it really consists of sandstone layers overlain with clay and gypsum, and still
more frequently with marls, limestone, and silicious strata, in which numerous
fossil shells have been collected.
Southwards the ground falls through a succession of terraces and cliffs scored
with deep ravines. The limit of the northern desert is marked by the copious
Hassi wells and other springs, which ooze up from a depth of 760 feet below the
plateau. South of this point begins the region of oases inhabited by the Hamatic
(Berber) commimities. The observer asks in amazement how the Roman armies,
possessing no camels Kke the caravans of our days, were able to traverse the Red
Hamada, as stated by the old writers, and as attested by the richly sculp tm'ed tombs
occurring at intervals along the Kne of march, and especially on the crests or
summits commanding extensive views of the country. Some of these sepulchral
monuments, the sdnem of the Arabs, are graceful little shrines, whose correct style
shows that the architects and sculptors of these remote regions scarcely pelded in
artistic taste to those of the mother country.
In modern times the direct route over the hamada was first explored by Barth,
Overweg, and Riclfardson, other European travellers having followed the more
easterly road across the Jebel-es-Soda. There can be little doubt that during the
last two thousand years the whole region has gradually become drier, and thus
would be explained the relatively easier access to the interior formerly afforded
by the western route, prceter caput saxi* " by the head of the rock."
North-eastwards the Red Plateau, furrowed by numerous wadies, is broken into
narrow promontories, which are again cut up into secondary headlands. Some of
these segments of the great rocky tableland have even been completely detached
from the hamada, thus forming small distinct ridges limited on either side by
watercourses. Such are the Kaf Mugelad, the Jebel Khadamia, and the Jebel
* Pliny, v., ch. 0.
40
NOETH-T\^ST AFRICA.
Ergenn, whose mean elevation is about the same as that of the plateau. From the
head of the passes intersecting them a distant ^-iew is commanded of the system of
broad ravines, all draining east and north-east towards the Mediterranean, In this
ruo-o-ed district evcrv headland is crowned, like the summits of the hamada, with
the ruins of tombs and of other Roman structures, embellished with columns and
carvings. A methodical survey of the whole of this part of Tripolitana is urgently
demanded, says Rohlfs, in order to study the interesting inscriptions and recover
the more choice bas-reliefs here found in abundance. The establishment of an
archaeological museum at Tripoli might help to preserve valuable ornaments, which
Fig. 13. — Jebel Ghiteian.
Scale 1 : l.OOaOOO.
5g-^
KoulebahX
55
L V. of Greenwicl-i
IS'SO-
24 MileB.
else threaten soon to become mere heaps of stones, like the allems or landmarks
raised here and there by the Arabs in the midst of the sands.
North of the Red Hamada follow several chains or rather risings in the plateau,
rmjning for the most part in the direction from east to west, parallel at once with
the edge of the hamada and the sea-coast. These are the ranges of hills, normally
more elevated than the great sandstone tableland, which arrest the clouds borne by
the moist winds, and thus divert the moisture from the surface of the vast plateau
stretching southwards.
.iVltogother this upland northern region, known generally as the " Jebel," the
Cilius Mons of the ancients, may be regarded as a terrace standing at a higher
level than the Hamada-el-Homra, but far less uniform, and furrowed throughout
its whole thickness by deep river gorges. Its mean height may be about 2,000
feet. The Jebel Ghurian, which forms the north-eastern rampart of this hilly
tract, and whose blue crests are seen from Tripoli rising above the surroimding
PHYSICAL FEATUEES. 41
palm-groves, lias some points 2,250 feet high. Barth even mentions the Bibel, one
" very high mountain," whose approximate altitude, however, he omits to give.
In the direction of the hills and lowlands which slope seawards, and which are
in fact known as the Jefarah or "Flats," the terrace of Ghurian terminates in many-
places in abrupt escarpments. The ravines at its foot, often filled with verdant
fruit-trees, are commanded on either side by bare walls, now of white limestone,
now of dark basaltic rocks. On the edge of one of these almost vertical precipices
stands the citadel of Kasr Ghurian, flanked with round towers at the four angles of
its enclosure. From this eagles' eyrie the Turkish garrison commands an extensive
prospect of the region entrusted to its charge.
West of the Jebel Ghurian the scarp of the great terrace, which Barth regards
as the " true continental coastline," maintains throughout nearly its whole extent
the same abrupt declivity. Along the Wady Sert in the Jebel Yef ren the cliff rises
vertically at one point to a height of 1,630 feet. One of the summits on the outer
ridge of the terrace is crowned at its culminating point (2,180 feet) by a stronghold
even more formidable than that of Ghurian, to which the appellation of Kasr-el-
Jebel, or " HiU Fort," has been given in a pre-eminent sense. The side of the
open cirque at the foot of the citadel is a stratified formation of surprising regu-
larity. Diversely coloured gypsum and limestone layers, the latter forming projecting
cornices between the softer and more weathered beds of gj^psum, alternate from top
to bottom of the cliff in a perfectly uniform series, as if planned by an architect.
The culminating point of the whole district, exceeding 2,830 feet, is indicated from
a distance by the remains of a Roman tomb.
"West of the Jebel Yefren follow other still little known ranges, the Nef usa and
beyond it the Dwirat, which continues to run parallel with and at a distance of
about 60 miles from tlie coast, to which farther west it gradually approaches,
ultimately disappearing in Tunisia, near the Gulf of Cabes. All these outer ranges
of Tripolitana are almost everywhere covered with a vegetable humus like those of
the Algerian Kabylia, and the fruit-trees, cultivated by the Berbers with the same
care in both regions, thrive equally well in Tripolitana. Not a village is here
without its groves of dates, olives, pomegranates, figs, apricots, and other fruits.
Facing the Jebel properly so-called — that is, the rugged escarpment of the
plateau — stand a few isolated volcanoes now extinct. Even in the midst of the
uplands the limestone rocks are pierced with crevasses, through which basaltic
lavas have burst forth. Some of these cones would seem to have forced their way
upwards through the sedimentary rocks of the Je' ol Dwirat. North-west of the
Jebel Ghurian rises the twin-crested Manterus volcano, and farther east Mount
Tekut, perhaps the highest point in North Tripolitana (2,840 feet).
North-east of the terminal rampart of the Ghurian system stretches a lower
terrace studded with shahas or shabats, that is, volcanic chasms surrounded by lava
streams, which are now overgrown with alfa grass. Farther on the sacred Jebel
Msid, its sununit crowned with an Arab castle of the thirteenth century, lifts its
round grassy cupola far above all the surrounding eminences. Beyond this point
stretches seawards the upland Tar-hona plain (1,000 feet), whose argillaceous
AFRICA I. ^
42 NOKTH-WEST APEICA.
surface is here and there broken by a few volcanic heights, which, however, do not
form a mountain range, as is usually represented on the maps.
North-eastwards another Jebel Msid, also highly venerated and crowned with a
zawya or moslem monastery, limits the Tar-hona plain on the one hand and on the
other the Bondara and Mesellata hills, whose spurs terminate on the sea- coast. One
of these advanced eminences, whose summit is disposed in three distinct crests,
Barth is disposed to identify with the mountain of the Three Graces mentioned by
Herodotus, who, however, places it much farther inland.
Hydrographic System.
Although more than half the size of France, Tripolitana, properly so-called, has
not a single perennial stream. But during the rainy season superb cascades are
seen tumbling down the rocky sides of Ghurian and Yef ren into the lower gorges,
and the muddy waters are frequently copious enough to force their way seawards
through the sand accumulated in their beds. Barth reports, on the authority of the
natives, that in the year 1806 the "Wady-el-Ghasas, flowing from the Jebel Yefren,
united with the other torrents of the valley in a powerful stream which reached
the coast across the Zenzur palm- groves west of Tripoli, and discoloured the sea
with its allu^^a for 120 miles, as far as the island of Jerba.
Most of the watercourses have broad channels confined between high banks, a
proof of the large volume sent down diiring the floods. Nevertheless travellers
usually take the winding beds of these wadies when their route lies in the same
direction, and except in the rainy season they have little occasion to regret the
ruined state of the Roman bridges met here and there along the more frequented
tracks.
Far more useful than the restoration of these bridges would be that of the dams
and dykes, which retain the temporary waters of the inundations at the outlets of
the upland valleys. At the foot of the Jebel Ghurian, Barth saw one of these
reservoirs, of Arab construction, whose ruined ramparts are now traversed by the
caravan route. The only receptacles at present known to the people of Tripolitana
are the mayens, or stone cisterns, whose gates are carefully kept under lock and key
for the dry season. In several districts the art is also understood of excavating the
so-called fogarats, or underground galleries, in which the fluid is collected, and
which communicate with the surface through wells simk at intervals in the ground.
These galleries are similar to the kanats met in the arid districts of Persia and
Afghanistan.
Amongst the "extinct" rivers which formerly rolled down considerable volumes,
but whose beds have now for most of the year to be excavated for a little brackish
fluid, there are several whose course has been completely effaced before reaching
the seaward area of drainage. On the Mediterranean slope of Tripolitana all the
wadies, whatever be the quantity of water flooding their channels after sudden
downpours or protracted rains, reach the sea, or at least the sebkhas on the coast.
Some of them have even vast basins, in comparison with which those of the Italian
COASTLANDS. 43
riyers, flowing over against them on tlie opposite side of the Mediterranean, would
be regarded as but of slight importance. Thus the wady debouching at Mukhtar,
that is, on the frontier of Barka and Tripolitana proper, has a whole network of
secondary wadies, draining a district 120 miles in length along the northern slopes
of the Haruj and Jebel-es-Soda.
Farther west, the TVady-esh-Shegga also receives the waters of an extensive
territory, in which is included the Jofra oasis. The "Wady Um-esh-Sheil has its
source in the very heart of the plateaux between the Black Mountains and the Red
Hamada, and reaches the west coast of the Great Syrtis after a course of at least
300 miles. Of smaller volimie, but more famous, is the Wad}- Zemzem, as shown by
its very name, which is that of the sacred spring in the temple of the Kaaba. So
highly esteemed are the waters collected in the cavities excavated in its bed, that
they are supposed to rival those of the Mecca fountain itself. The Sufajin (Suf -el-
Jin), the most copious of all these wadies, is fed by all the torrents of the plateaux
comprised between the Jebel Ghurian and the Jebel Khadaima. Going westwards,
its basin is the last in Tripolitana of any considerable extent, being estimated at
about 8,000 square miles. The "Wady-el-Kaan, which is crossed in the neighbour-
hood of the Leptis mines, has a course of only a few miles ; but it has been
identified as the Cynips, so famous in ancient times for the fertility of the valley
watered by it. It is also known as the "Wady-el-Mghar-el-Grin, or "Eiver of
Abysses." But its waters, which were formerly of excellent quaKty, and which
were conveyed by an aqueduct to the inhabitants of Leptis, have become for some
unknown reason so bad that travellers carefully abstain from drinking them.
In the west of Tripoli the only streams of any extent are the wadies Haera, El-
Ethel, Beidha, and Segsao, all flowing from the hills and escarpments of Earth's
" continental coastline."
CoASTLANDS.
A very large section of the seaboard, east and west of the hilly district which
terminates at Cape Misrata at the angle of separation between the Great Syrtis and
the coast of Khoms, is occupied with the so-called sebkhas, that is, shallow depres-
sions in which the waters of the wadies are collected. Occasionally, also, the
marine currents penetrate into these lagoons across the intervening strip of coast,
or through temporary canals opened during stormy weather. But for the greater
part of the year most of the sebkhas are nothing more than natural salt-pits, whose
muddy margins are overgrown with alkaline plants.
The longest of these coast lagoons begins at Cape Misrata and extends south-east
and east parallel with the shores of the Syrtis, fi'om which it is separated by a line
of dunes. This is the Tawagha sebkha, into which the wadies of the interior
discharge their floods during the rainy season. It formerl;f communicated with the
sea, and was na%^gable, as appears from the remains of the "Roman" canal, as it is
still called. In certain places the outlines of the sebkhas, as well as those of the
arable lands and oases, have been modified by the sands of the beach, which are
carried some distance inland, and which are disposed in successive ranges of dunes.
44 NORTH-WEST APEIOA.
Such are the sands which encircle the date-palm plantations of Tripoli, and which
are described by travellers as already forming part of the " great desert," although
this region lies hundreds of miles distant, beyond the Jebel Ghurian.
Along the shores of the Great Syrtis and of "Western Tripolitana the tides are
so little felt that their existence has been denied by several observers, such as Delia
Cella, Pezant, and even the experienced Captain Beechey. During syzygy the water
rises about two feet, and occasionally, when impelled by fierce northern gales, as high
as five feet. It is diflScult to form an adequate idea of the enormous power exercised
by the surf along the crescent- shaped shores of the Great Syrtis, which have at all
times been dreaded by seafarers, and regarded by them as irresistibly attracting
vessels to their destruction. According to Sallust, this very attractive force is
indicated by the term SjTtis. Possibly, also, the terrible Lamia, that devouring
monster said by the Greeks to dwell in a cavern on this seaboard, was nothing
more in their eyes than the spirit of the storm and whirlwind.
At Zafran, near the ancient Medineh-es-Sultan, the coast is fringed, as it were,
by huge blocks, lashed and piled up by the waves in the form of breakwaters. At
first sight they in fact present the appearance of the remains of colossal quays,
although the vast development of these formidable sea walls shows that we are in
presence of some work of nature. Nevertheless this natural structure had formerly
been utilised as a support for an artificial pier erected to shelter the port of Zafran.
The coast of Tripolitana is one of those where, right or wrong, indications are
supposed to have been observed of a slow subsidence of the ground, or else of an
upheaval of the sea-level. At Tripoli, the movement is said to have proceeded at
the yearly rate of about half an inch during the last half century. Thus the
Mediterranean would appear to be slowly but incessantly working gradually to
recover its ancient inlets, which, although now dried up, still lie below sea-level.
Climate.
The climate of Tripolitana resembles that of the other regions along the North
African seaboard, except that here the southerly deflection of the coastline gives it
a higher average temperature, and on the whole a more continental character. The
maritime district is comprised within the isothermals of 68° and 72° F., whereas
in the interior the heat is higher on the low-lying districts, lower on the uplands.
On the sands at noon it exceeds 154°, and even 170° F., and Rohlfs' dog had in
some places to be shod with sandals before he could follow his master across the
burning soil. According to the same traveller, the normal yearly temperature is
as high as 86° F. in the Jofra oasis at the foot of the Jebel-es-Soda. But it
should be added that these intense heats are far more easily borne in the dry
regions of the interior than would be the case on the coastlands, where per-
spiration is checked by the excessive atmospheric moisture. The impression pro-
duced by the heat along the seaboard may be compared to that felt in a Turkish
bath.
Between the extremes of heat, exceeding 105° and 112° F., and of cold, the
\ CLIMATE. 45
I
difference is enormous, for it often freezes on tlie plateaux. Snow is even said to
have fallen in the Jofra oasis, as well as on the neighbouring hills.
On the coast the heat and dryness of the air are daily tempered, at least from
April to October, by the marine breeze, which blows regularly from the north-
east in the same direction as the normal trade winds. It deflects gradually east-
wards, and after an interval of cahn the land breeze springs up, lasting the whole
night, but towards the morning veering a little round to the west. Occasionally
storms arise in this season, when the marine breezes become violent gales, dan-
gerous to the shipping along the coast, on which the surf beats with great fury.
During the winter months, which also coincide with the rainy season, the winds
blow usually from the west, north-west, or north, and these also are accompanied
by storms. But far more dangerous, owing to their sudden appearance, are the
abrupt transitions from north-east to south-west, generally followed by thunder
and heavy rains.
Of frequent occurrence are the calms, during which vapours accumulate in the
air in such abundance that the sun becomes obscured, and the firmament is every-
where overcast by a white veil of mist. In the Mediterranean basin there are few
other regions where grey tints prevail so generally in the atmosphere. To catch a
glimpse of the blue aerial spaces, the traveller must penetrate far into the interior
of the country. Here the vapours, instead of spreading in a uniform veil over the
whole sky, are condensed into thick layers of dappled cloudlets. Nevertheless the
skies of Tripolitana never acquire the serene azure which is so much admired in
the temperate regions of Europe. The dust raised and dispersed throughout the
atmosphere by the desert wind, at times in the form of the simoom, is held for
weeks and months in suspension, always imparting to the heavens a slightly leaden
effect. Vessels anchored in the j)ort of Tripoli often find their decks strewn with
sand by the storm, during which the town and the shore become wrapped in a
thick fog or cloud, dry and parching rather than damp. Under the influence of
the sandstorm, commonly called gebli, or "south wind," electricity is freely
Kberated. Sheltered in his tent, the traveller Stecker was on one occasion able to
write his name in streaks of flame on the canvas covering.
In the province of Tripolitana proper the mean annual rainfall is estimated at
about eight inches, a proportion far exceeded in Mauritania and Cyrenaica, that is
to say, the two regions projecting northwards to the right and left of the depresf-
sion of the Syrtes. In its pluviometric conditions Tripolitana thus belongs rather
to the desert zone than to that of the coastlands. Heavy showers occur most fre-
quently and in greatest abundance on the northern slopes of the Jebel Ghurian and
of the other chains forming the scarp of the plateau. Hence in wealth of vege-
tation these tracts rival the Algerian Kabylia itself, and might easily afford
sustenance for a population of many hundred thousand soifls. But in the oases of
the plains it sometimes happens that tillage is suspended for years, owing to the
absence of rain. Even moist fogs are rare, although here and there developed on
the cultivated plateaux before sunrise, or spreading a fleecy veil over the palm
groves of the oases. But however intensely dry the atmosphere usually is.
40 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
vegetation is always able to absorb a little of the latent moisture, for it sur\'ives
for years 'O'ithout receiving any rain. Thus the gelgelan {mathiola livida) a species
of crucifer, distils every morning a few drops at the tip of its leaves, although no
appearance of dew can be detected roimd about. The very rocks themselves must
have the power of attracting some of the humidity present in the atmosphere ;
else whence those perennial springs, such as the inexhaustible well of Ghadames,
which continue to ooze up in the oases, where ten, or even twenty, years sometimes
pass without a single shower to moisten the surrounding cliffs, at whose foot the
limpid fountain never fails ?
Flora.
Although the botanical survey of Tripolitana is far from complete, it may
alreadv be concluded that its flora is relatively very poor, thanks partly to the
slight relief of the land, partly to the scanty rainfall. "With the exception of
thirteen new species or varieties, all the plants round the shores of the Syrtes and
in the inland districts as far as Fezzan belong to the flora of Mauritania, Egjq)t,
or Sicily. A few Italian species, which do not occur in Tunisia, are met in
TripoUtana, a land of transition between the desert and the Mediterranean basin.
Nearly all the fruit-trees of temperate Europe grow here, but do not all yield
good fruits. The almond thrives admirably, forming magnificent groves even at
Ghadames, on the very verge of the desert. The quince, pomegranate, and fig also
flourish in the oases, while everj^where the vine gives good returns, although the
grape is not used for making wine. The apricot grows to a great size, but in the
southern districts produces an indifferent fruit. Even the peach, plum, and apple,
growing in the oases beneath the shade of the date palm, are no longer much more
than ornamental plants. The apples gathered in the oases are no larger than
walnuts, and are quite tasteless. In these sultry latitudes the orange is also a poor
fruit, although the idea of the " golden apple " is foimd associated in legend with
that of those " gardens of the Hesperides," many of which were placed by the
ancients in the vicinity of Tripolitana, properly so called. The citron also scarcely
flourishes beyond the seaboard districts. In the Ghadames oasis there exists only a
solitary specimen.
The characteristic fruit-trees of TrijDolitana are the olive and the date. As
ragards the former, the coastlands of the Syrtes belong to the same zone as Sicily
and South Italy, while by the latter they are connected -with the oases of the
interior. Around many villages of the seaboard the palm and olive are inter-
mingled in shady groves, presenting a charming picture by their varied forms,
the hundred details of the undergrowth, and the aspect of houses and ruins
scattered amid the surrounding verdure.
But the natives of Tripoli lack the skill required to extract the oil from their
olives, so that this plant possesses little importance in tlie general movement of
trade. Their chief resource are their date-palms, although certain oases south
of the Great Syrtis have nothing but the wild plant, which grows in clusters and
yields an indifferent fruit, consumed chiefly by the animals. In these districts arc
FLOEA.
47
also met a few date-palms with, bifurcating stem, like that of the dum-palm, a plant
also represented in the flora of South Tripolitana. The finest dates are said to be
those yielded by the plantations of Gharia, in the upland valley of the TVady
Zemzem, although these are still inferior to those of the Suf district in Algeria and
of the "Wady Draa iii the south of Marocco. The number of dates cultivated in the
whole of Tripolitana may be estimated at about two millions. Whether in the
oases of the Jebel-es-Soda or of the Red Hamada, or on the steppes skirting the
Mediterranean seaboard, the plantations are everywhere formed of trees set close
together, the groves thus producing at a distance the effect of verdant islands.
Fig. 14. — Oases and Arable Laitos of Tetpoutana.
Scale 1: 7,80" 000.
m^er
ma
0 to 320
Feet.
Depths.
320 to 3,200
Feet.
3,200 Feet and
upwards.
120 Miles.
The requirements of irrigation and of the fertilisation of the female plant by the
male pollen, in many places also the necessity of common defence against the attacks
of marauding tribes, have caused all the dates of each district to be grouped in a
compact mass. After lea'S'ing certain groves containing a hundred thousand plants
in the closest proximity, the traveller does not again meet, with a solitary specimen
during a march of several hours, or even for days together. During the expedition
of the brothers Beechey, a single palm was visible on the coast of the Great Syrtis
near Cape Misrata, and when Barth visited the same district fifteen years after'
wards, the tree had disappeared.
48 NOETH-WEST AFEICA.
Tripolitana also possesses, especially in the beds of its wadies, vast forests of
the talha, or Arabian acacia, which always grows in a scattered way, but none the
less presents a pleasant spectacle to travellers emerging from the bare and stony
hamadas. Some of these acacias attain the proportions of almond trees, but on the
outskirts of the forests, and especially on sites with a northern aspect, they dwindle
to mere shrubs. The gum distilled by them is of excellent quality, fully equal to
that of Senegambia, but it is little used in the country.
The sodr [zizi/p/ius lotus), so common that it has given the name of Sodriya to a
whole district in west Tripolitana, the mastic, batum (pistachio), and most of the
shrubs found in the thickets of Southern Italy, also belong to the wild flora of this
region, where they often clothe the slopes of the hills with a dense mantle of
verdure. The tamarisk and the rtem or retama grow on the slightly saline low-
lying grounds. The shi, or wormwood, to which camels are specially partial, is
dotted in tufts over the stony steppes ; and the lecanora desertoritm, a species of
edible lichen, covers certain tracts here and there on the plateau of the desert.
Characteristic of these plateaux is also the bes/ina, a species differing in no respect
from the alfa grass of Algeria, and which, like it, has also begun to be exported
for the European paper-mills. The natives have a notion that they can get rid of
their ailments by transferring them to this plant. Camel-riders are sometimes
seen dismounting and kneeling over a tuft of alfa, which they carefully knot
together, hoping thereby to secure their maladies to the stalk.
Fauna of Tripolitana.
The fauna of Tripolitana differs from that of the surroimding regions only so
far as it is less rich in species. "Wild and domestic animals are here less numerous
than in Mauritania. The uplands are infested neither by lions nor panthers, while
the lack of permanent rivers has caused the crocodile to disappear, just as in the
interior the disafforestation of the country has proved fatal to the elephant. The
steppes would be admirably suited for ostrich farming ; but it is uncertain whether
this animal still survives in this region. If any are to be found, it can only be in
the less accessible districts of the Red Hamada. Kecently a few ostriches have been
imported from Burnu, and some Italians, although with little success, have turned
their attention to the breeding of this " winged racer," which could thrive nowhere
better than on the extensive plains of Jefara.
In some districts, notably the Jofra oasis and the coastlands around the ijrreat
Syrtis, the carnivora are represented neither by the hyaena nor even by the jackal,
the only wild beasts of this class being the fennec and the fox. Hares, rabbits, a
few species of gazelles and antelopes, marmots with long white-tufted tails, the
African moufilon or wild sheep, such is the game that most abounds in Tripolitana.
The stony hamadas are intersected in every direction by the tracks of gazelles,
much narrower than the paths laid down by man, and thoroughly cleared of any
sharp stones, that might wound the delicate feet of these graceful creatures.
Amongst the reptiles more commonly met is the sand gecko, which is furiously
INHABITANTS OF TEIPOLITANA 49
attacked wherever met by tlie natives, who think it not only poisonous but also
endowed with magic powers. The cerastes, or horned viper, is also much dreaded,
although never dangerous in winter, or when the sun is not at its full strength.
It is a very timid animal, cowering in the sand, to which it has become assimilated
in colour, and numbed at the least lowering of the temperature. But few birds are
met in the thickets of Tripolitana, except during the few days of migration north
and southwards in spring and autumn.
Of domestic animals the most useful are the camel and ass, employed as pack
animals. Both cattle and horses are rare and of small size. In some oases scarcely
two or three steeds are to be met, and these are reserved for the chiefs, who are
very proud of their mounts. This absence of horses is largely due to the Turkish
pashas, whose policy it has been to deprive the restless Arab tribes of their cavalry.
This was a sure way of " clipping their wings," and reducing them to a state of
tranquillity. Nor are dogs at all numerous ; except in the coast towns, scarcely
any breed is to, be met besides the slughi, or Arab greyhound. The fat-tailed sheep,
the only variety in Tripolitana, still wears a woolly coat, notwithstanding the heat
of the climate. The fleece does not disappear until we reach Fezzan, south of the
Jebel-es-Suda. Much more common than the sheep are the goats, to which the
scrub affords a sufficient nutriment. According to native report, those that browse
on the retama plant give an intoxicating milk.
Inhabitants of Tripolitana.
As in the other " Barbary States," as they were formerly called, the population
of TripoKtana consists of Berbers and Arabs, the latter name comprising all the
descendants of the invaders who settled in the country at the time of the first
Mussulman conquest, and again during the great Hilalian immigration in the
eleventh century. The Berbers are probably the more numerous, representing as
they do the aboriginal element. But in several districts they have laid aside their
primitive dialects, having become assimilated to their conquerors in speech, as well
as in religion and usages. Hence many tribes of undoubted Berber descent pass
nevertheless for Arabs. This incessant process of assimilation was already noticed
by Ibn-Khaldim in the fourteenth century. Even in most of the oases and rural
districts, where Berbers and Arabs constitute distinct ethnical groups, each with
its own name and special organisation, both have become so intermingled by family
alliances that it becomes impossible to detect the least physical difference between
them. In all the tribes alike are met persons characterised by Negroid, Semitic,
or Caucasic features. But the colour of the skin is almost without exception
yellowish or bronzed, the hair black and kinky, the body slim, with shapely limbs.
As amongst all North African peoples, the women are relatively of much smaller
size than the men, the discrepancy between the sexes being in this respect much
greater than amongst Europeans.*
The Berbers of Tripolitana proper who appear to have best preserved the
* Grerhard Rohlfs, "Kufra; Querdurch Afrioo."
50 NOETH-WEST AFEICA.
primitive type are the inhabitants of the Ghurian and Yefren highlands ; of all
the native tribes these have also most valiantly maintained their independence.
The Jebel Yefren is still the hotbed of all insurrectionary movements, and these
natives are fond of relating TNath pride the heroic deeds of their forefathers, notably
those of their last hero, Ehuma, who maintained for years a guerilla warfare
against the Turks. In miKtary prowess, as well as love of work, the care bestowed
on their fields and orchards, intelligence and natural vivacity, these are the
" Kabyles " of TripoKtana. The contrast is very striking between them and the
sluggish peoples of the lowlands.
The Jebel Nefusa, north-west of the Jebel Yefren, is also inhabited by Berber
tribes, some of whom still speak a dialect closely allied to that of the Tuaregs. But
most of the natives are probably descended from those Luata or Liuata, that is, the
ancient Libu or Libyans, who were the masters of the land before the Arab inva-
sion, and who, like the Arabs themselves, came originally from the east to seek new
homes in north Africa. In one of the Jebel Nefusa tribes, as amongst the Aulad
Nail of Algeria, the young women are in the habit of migrating to the surrounding
oases and towns to earn their dowry by the sacrifice of their virtue. Tarik, con-
queror of Spain, was a Nefesi, or Berber of the Jebel Nefusa, and he belonged
perhaps to one of those tribes which had become mingled with the Christian popu-
lations, but professed the Jewish religion. Hence possibly the favour he showed to
the Spanish Jews at the time of the conquest. At present the inhabitants of the
Jebel Nefusa, although adherents of Islam, belong to the " fifth sect," being Ibad-
hites, like the Beni-Mzab of Algeria.
Amongst the Berber highlanders, some tribes still dwell in underground villages,
and according to Duveyrier, these troglodytes have given their name to the Jebel
Garian, or " Cave Moimtains," commonly but wrongly called the Jebel Ghurian.
A square space 25 to 30 feet deep is excavated in the sandy or limestone rock, and
on either side of this pit are opened the vaulted chambers in which the inhabitants
reside. A well simk in the enclosure supplies them with water, which usually lies
within a few yards of the surface. Communication is effected with the outer world
by means of a winding passage protected at either end by a strong gate, and
through this the people return every evening to their retreat, with their animals
and poultry.
- Before the arrival of the Arabs and the spread of Islam, the troglodytes
raised altars to the gods. In the vicinity of the mountains, and especially round
about the Jebel Msid on the upland Tar-hona plains, religious monmnents have
been preserved, dating undoubtedly from prc-Arab times, and attributed to the
ancestors of the Berbers. They are constructed of megalithic blocks resembling
those of Britanny, Andalusia, and South Algeria, but presenting some distinctive
features. The Bcrbei' monuments of Tripolitana take the form of porticoes
averaging 10 feet high, made of two square pillars resting on a common pedestal
and .supi)orting a quadrangular block, which exceeds in height the vertical stones
on either side. Between the latter the opening would be too narrow, says Barth,
for a single person to squeeze through, unless he was extremely thin.
THE AEABS OF TEIPOLITANA. 51
At the western foot of the Jebel Msid of Mesellata there are six of these
cromlechs, some still standing, others overturned, near the ruins of a temple. The
almost Roman style of the building leads us to suppose that the architects of the
megalithic structures lived at a time when the country was still imder the sway of
the Italian conquerors, and a sculptured animal on one of the porticoes recalls the
Roman wolf. Nevertheless some authorities, far from regarding these " biliths "
and " triliths " of Tripolitana as religious edifices, look on them merely as the
framework of gateways constructed, as was usual, of materials far more durable
than the walls of the houses. Hence the latter, mere earthworiis, crumbled away
to the level of the ground, while the former remained standing, and thus assumed
the form of cromlechs.
The Arabs of Tripolitana.
If the Berber element prevails on the highlands and plateaux, the Arabs, of
more or less mixed stock, have acquired the ascendancy on the plains. These
nomad tribes naturally prefer the vast steppe lands, where they can move about
with their flocks, changing their camping-grounds at pleasure, according to the
abundance of water and pasturage. The Arab has no love of the forest, which he
fires, in order that timber may give place to herbage, and his glance be not
obstructed by the leafy branches. Thus the Tar-hona plateau, between the Ghurian
highlands and the Mesellata hiUs, has been completely wasted, not a single tree
being spared.
Like all other nomad populations, which by their very dispersion break into a
multitude of distinct groups, differing in their traditions, customs and interests^
the x^abs of Tripolitana are divided into a number of tribes, differing from one
another in some respects, although preserving for generations the memory of their
common ancestry. Some of these commimities are distinguished by their numbers,
power, and noble descent. In the east one of the most important tribes is that of
the Aulad Sliman, zealous members of the Senusiya brotherhood, who roam the
steppes round the shores of the Grreat Syrtis, and who have pushed their warlike
expeditions to the Tsad basin beyond the desert, like the Nasamon wanderers
mentioned by Herodotus.
Farther south the Aulad Khris have partly taken possession of the ZeUa oasis,
and in the neighbourhood of the Haruj gorges have afforded a refuge to kindred
tribes escaping from the oppressive measures of the Turkish pashas. The Urfilas,
or Orfellas, who occupy the hilly districts at the eastern foot of the great plateau,
are the most formidable fighting element amongst the Arabs of Tripolitana. It
is not long since they were even accused of kidnapping children to devour them.
They call themselves Arabs, and speak Arabic ; but it is es^ident, from the style of
their dwellings, their agricultural practices, and the names of their sub-tribes and
villages, that the fundamental element of the population is Berber.*
To the north-west, in the direction of the capital, follow less numerous and more
* Lyon, "Narrative of Travels in Northern Africa."
52
NORTH-WEST APEICA.
peaceful tribes, such as the Kedadifas, Aulad Bu-Seifs, Sfradnas, Aulad Yusefs,
Hamadats, and Tar-honas. Of all these kindred clans, the most respected are the
Bu-Seifs, who reside chiefly about the "Wady Sufejin and its tributaries. In order
to preserve intact their social usages, the Bu-Seifs allow no strangers to remain
overnight in their encampments, but assign them a separate tent in the vicinity,
where, however, they are entertained with perfect hospitality. This tribe breeds
the finest camels in the whole of Tripolitana, and in all their tents the younglings
are treated like the children of the family.
"West of Tripoli, towards the Tunisian frontier, the chief tribes are the Wershe-
Fig. 15. — Inhabitants of Teipolitana.
Scale 1 : 7,800,000.
35°
28'
i O A
■I
5^^
IL t o'f breenwigh
0 to 320
Feet.
Depths.
320 to 3.200
Feet.
3,200 Feet and
upwards.
120 Miles.
fanas, Ben-Ajelas, and Nuails. Till recently conflicts were frequent in the border
lands between the two states, and the victorious or defeated clans were continually
displacing their camping grounds according to the vicissitudes of battle.
Although the art of writing has been lost among the Berbers of Tripolitana,
most of these communities are designated on the ground or the face of the cliffs by
complicated marks or signs, which must be regarded either as abbreviated names, or
symbolic marks, analogous to the totems of the North American Indians.
There are also some Arab tribes held in great veneration, not on account of
their pure morals or any special merit, but in consequence of the pretended sanctity
THE NEGROES. 53
of their origin. These are the so-called Shor/a* that is, descendants of the
Prophet, although the family genealogical tree is seldom authentic. It is enough
for a woman to marry a Sharif, even though immediately afterwards repudiated
by her husband, for all her children, and children's children to take this honoured
title. The " Marabutic " families of Tripolitana also claim to have come from the
'west, whence the Shorfa are said to have migrated. Anyhow, it appears to be
quite certain that a great many Arab tribes advanced as far as the Atlantic sea-
board during the first years of the conquest. Since that epoch a general movement
in the opposite direction has been effected, so that those tribes are regarded as of
noblest blood who during their migrations have twice traversed the route between
Mauiritania and the eastern provinces of North Africa. Such groups are even
more esteemed than if they had come straight from the holy cities of Arabia.
At present this retrograde movement is more active than ever. The Algerian
Shorfa clans, with their wives, children, and herds, have already emigrated in
thousands to Tripoli, in order to escape from the yoke of the " infidel." The
Khwans of the religious brotherhood of the Senusiya, who have become so numerous
in the oases of Tripolitana, are also immigrants from the same region. After the
occupation of Tunisia by the French troops, several unsubdued tribe.8 sought a
refuge on the plains of Jefara, west of Tripoli.
The Negroes.
Next to that of the Berbers and Arabs, the largest section of the population is
certainly the Negro element. Amongst those who call themselves Arabs, or even
Shorfa, there are thousands who betray their black descent in the colour of their
skin and hair, the form of their features alone attesting mixture with the white
Semites. Commercial relations are so frequent and regular between Tripoli and
the interior of the continent, that there is nothing surprising in the presence of
numerous Nigritians on the Mediterranean coastlands. The great majority,
however, of those now living in Tripolitana have been forcibly brought thither as
slaves. Formerly not a single caravan arrived from Sudan unaccompanied by a
gang of captives. "We must therefore reckon by hundreds of thousands the nimiber
of blacks who have thus been imported into Tripoli, either to remain in the country
or to be forwarded thence to Egypt or Turkey. Although at present no longer
carried on openly in the capital of the vilayet, the slave trade has not yet by any
means totally ceased. On hearing of the arrival of a caravan in the southern
oases, the dealers in human flesh instruct their agents to obtain the best terms for
their living merchandise, which never fails to find a purchaser. At the same time
both Negroes and Negresses, at least in the capital, may at any time demand a
letter of emancipation, and this document is never refusea*. Many of these freed-
men remain in the houses of their former masters, who are still looked up to as
patrons and protectors even by those who withdraw from their roof to live
* Shorfa or Shurafa is the plural of Sharif, properly a noble or grandee, but usually restricted to
the real or presumed descendants of Mohanuned.
64 NOETH-WEST APEICA.
independently. On all festive occasions they return to share in the family
rejoicings.
The great majority of the Negro population resides neither in the capital nor
in any of the other towns of the pro^ince. Faithful to their racial instincts, they
have grouped themselves in small hamlets, where they live in huts made of palms,
branches, and reeds. ^Neither the houses of the civilised Turks nor the tents of
the nomad Arabs suit the habits of communities still following the same mode of
life as their fellow-coimtrjTnen on the banks of the Niger and Lake Tsad.
Although familiar with Arabic, most of them still speak their native dialects.
From the Niam-Niam territory to that of the Fulahs, all the regions of Central
Africa are represented in Tripolitana by their respective languages, although the
majority', or about two-thirds of the population, converse in the Haussa already
current throughout "Western Sudan. In many districts a stranger might fancy
it had also become the prevailing language of Tripolitana, owing to the incessant
chattering of the Negroes, as contrasted with the less voluble Arabs and Berbers.
But it is not likely that the Haussa tongue will maintain itself for many genera-
tions in the country ; for however correct the social life of the local black com-
munities, however touching their devotion to their families, the Negro women are
rarely very prolific, while infant mortality is very high. Yet in other respects
the women would appear to resist the climate better than the men, and many even
live to a great age.
The Turks and Kulugli.
The Turks, who since 1835 enjoy not only the sovereignty but also the effec-
tive power, are in a minority even in the capital. Nevertheless their language
has gradually become predominant amongst most of the " Tarabulsiyeh," the
preponderating influence of the administration having caused the official idiom to
prevail over the Arabic. Yet the Turks are still strangers in the land, holding
aloof from the rest of the inhabitants, from whom they are already somewhat
distinguished as " Malekits " in the midst of " Hanefite " populations. They are,
moreover, careful to follow the fashions of Constantinople, and by an affected
dignity of carriage they endeavour to sever themselves from the populace, to
which as judges and administrators they nevertheless condescend to sell justice
and protection. But for all their airs of superiority, their passion for strong
drink has rendered them the most degraded section of the community.
More respectable are the Kulugli, that is, the descendants of Turks and
Moorish or other women of the country, whether black or white. These half-
castes pay no taxes, but are required to serve as irregular troops at the first
summons to arms. Since the immigration of so many Algerian families, escaping
from French rule, the Turks usually select their wives amongst the women of this
class, who are distinguished from the rest of the population by their honesty,
sobriety, and correct morals. Many of the young Algerian women are, moreover,
noted for their personal charms, in this respect contrasting favourably with the
TOPOGEAPHY. 55
native Moorish girls, whose reputation is also so bad that an alliance with one of
this class is looked upon almost as a disgrace. But however respected the wives
of the Turkish officials, their sons are seldom destined to hold high positions in
the administration. After serving in the gendarmerie or some other corps, most
of these Kuluglis withdraw to the rural districts surrounding the capital, where
they gradually merge in the rest of the population.
The Jews, Maltese, and Europeans of Tripolttana.
In Tripolitana, as in the other Barbary states, the Jews are essentially the
despised race. Yet they are amongst the oldest inhabitants of the country,
having settled here under the Ptolemies. During the early years of the Roman
administration they had secured the special protection of the Emperor Augustus.
An encampment west of Mukhlar, on the coast of the Great Syrtis, still bears the
name of Yehudia, or " Jewry," in memory of the Israelites who peopled the
country before the arrival of the Arabs.
In the Jebel Ghurian the Jews occupy, like the Berbers, certain underground
villages, in which, according to Lyon, their dwellings would appear to be cleaner
and better excavated than those of their neighbours. These troglodyte Jews, the
only artisans in the country, are exempt from the abuse and bad treatment to
which their co-religionists are elsewhere subjected in Tripolitana. In the capital,
where they number about 8,000, they occupy a separate quarter administered by a
" political rabbi," ignorant of the Pentateuch and of the Talmud, but armed with
the right to impose taxes, fines, the bastinado, and even issue interdicts against
private families. Twice enslaved, the Jews of Tripoli are very inferior to those
of Mauritania in intelligence, hence adhere far more tenaciously to the old orthodox
practices and hereditary customs.
A few Koptic families, who arrived with the Arabs, have maintained them-
selves in distinct groups in Tripolitana, where, however, they are not sufficiently
nxunerous to exercise the least social influence. More active, although also
numerically weak, are the Jeraba Berbers, immigrants from the Tunisian island
of Jerba. These are the richest dealers in the bazaar of Tripoli, although obhged
to compete with 4,000 Maltese, who are Arabs by descent. Christians in religion,
British subjects politically, partly Italians in speech, and French in educatioi^.
This half European colony is yearly reinforced by true Europeans, mostly Italians,
guests who hope soon to be masters, and who are meantime establishing schools to
diffuse their national speech. In 1884 the Italians numbered 800 out of a total of
1,000 continental Europeans.
>
Topography.
"West of Mukhlar, on the TripoHtan shores of the Great Syrtis, there is not a
single town, or even a permanent village comprising more than a few hundred
huts. For a space of some 300 miles nothing is to be seen except groups of tents,
56 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
a few cabins and shapeless ruins. But at least one " large city " formerly stood
on this seaboard, the place in mediaeval times by Abu Obeid Bakri named Sort,
whose ruins are still known to the Arabs under the appellation of Medinet-es-
Sultan, or " City of the Sultan." Sort, or Sirt, was formerly the starting-point of
caravans bound for the interior of the continent through the oases of Wadan and
Murzuk. But being unable to defend themselves against the attacks of the
nomad Bedouins, its merchants were compelled to choose another route to the east
of the plateaux, traversing oases which were inhabited by settled agricultural
communities. Amongst the ruins of Sort are the remains of some Roman struc-
tures, as well as aqueducts and reservoirs still in a good state of repair.
Like the coastlands themselves, the whole of the steppe region stretchiag thence
southwards is destitute of towns, although here the wells and depressions in the
wadies, where water collects in greatest abundance, serve as natural trysting-places
for the surroimding nomad pastoral tribes. To\\tis, properly so called, are found
only at the foot of the Haruj and Jebel-es-Soda, where the running waters are
copious enough to feed the palm groves and irrigate the cornfields. Even the
natural oases following in the direction from east to west under the same latitude
as those of Aujila and Jalo are uninhabited. Jibbena, to the east, Marade, in the
centre, and Abu Naim, farther west, are the three chief depressions whose
spontaneous vegetation seems most likely to attract future agricultural settlers.
All these districts stand at least about 150 feet above the level of the sea.
Towards the north, in the direction of the Great Syrtis, as well as on the
opposite side towards the spurs of the Hariij, the surface is broken by limestone
rocks, witnesses of a former plateau, weathered or perhaps eroded by running
waters, and worked in all directions into the form of columns and fantastic struc-
tures. These rocks abound in fossils, in many places constituting the whole mass,
while the sands of the oases are strewn with countless shells and foraminiferae.
In the east, towards the Aujila oasis, the view is obstructed by dunes which are
amongst the highest in the whole region of the desert, some rising to a height of
about 530 feet. The three oases abound in palms ; which, however, with the
exception of a few thousand, all grow wild, or have lapsed into the wild state,
springing up like scrub, and yielding a poor fruit without kernel. In the Abu
Naim oasis there are probably no male dates, while the female plants are not
fertile. All three oases produce a species of crab or wild apple-tree, whose fruit
is no bigger than a walnut.
The neighbouring tribes, or bands of marauders roaming over the steppes, come
occasionally to gather the dates and graze their camels in the grassy hollows of these
oases. Jibbena and Marad^ were still inhabited down to the middle of the present
century ; but in 1862 only a solitary person remained in Marade, a slave left to
watch the raiders, and report their depredations at the annual visit of his masters.
The establishment of a colony at the fountains of Abu Naim is prevented chiefly by
the bad quality of the water, which is very sulphurous, or charged with the sulphate
of magnesia. Doubtless the time will come, says Rohlfs, when a visit to these
sulphur baths of cast Tripolitana will be recommended by European physicians as
TOPOGEAPHY. 57
highly efficacious. Sulphur beds are numerous in this region, and a little to the
north of the oasis are situated the mines whose produce is exported from the little
port of Braiga.
The oasis of Zella, or Zalla, lying in a rock-enclosed cirque at the northern foot
of the Black Haruj, is one of the most densely peopled in the whole of Tripolitana.
In 1879 it contained about twelve hundred persons, members for the most part of
the Arab tribe of the Aulad Khris. The cirque has a length east and west of
7 miles, with a breadth of 3 north and south. "With the Tirsa oasis lying farther
north, it contains about a hundred thousand date-palms. At the time of Beurmann's
visit, in 1862, Tirsa was still inhabited, but has since been abandoned, probably
owing to the dangerous proximity of the Orfella Arabs.
This tribe, say the Aulad Khris, arrived ten centuries ago from Egypt, and after
driving out the Christian populations, became the guides and escorts of caravans
bound for Central Africa. Edrisi relates that their town was the chief station
between Sort and the Zwila oasis in Fezzan, But the "City of the Sultan," as it
was called, has disappeared, and at present the chief outlet for the exports of the
country lies much farther west, at the port of Tripoli. The people of Zella take no
part in this traffic except by devious ways. At the time of RohLFs visit, in 1879,
they had for several years been compelled to avoid the direct route to Tripoli,
fearing the vengeance of the Orfellas, whose territory lay across their path, and
some fifty members of which tribe they had killed in a fray.
On the other hand, they venture freely far into the southern wilderness, and to
them in recent times has been due a real geograj)hical discovery, that of the
inhabited oasis of Wau-el-Namus, which no European has yet visited. Of all the
Tripolitan Ai-abs, the inhabitants of Zella are the richest in camels. They are also
the only tribe still occupied with ostrich farming, althovigh since the journey of
Hamilton this industry has fallen off. In 1879, two of these birds, fed on dates,
yielded to their owner a net yearly profit of from £6 to £8.
Although larger and more populous than that of Zella, the Jofm oasis is far less
rich in cultivated palms. Scarcely a twentieth part of the 800 square miles com-
prising its whole area is under cultivation for dates, corn, or fruits. Its very name
of Jofra, from Jof, stomach, indicates the form of the oasis, which is an elongated
cirque stretching east and west, and everywhere encircled by hills rising 650 feet
above the plain. A range of heights, running north and south, that is, in the
direction of the short axis of the cirque, and interrupted at intervals, divides the
oasis into two equal parts, each with its gardens, palm groves, grassy steppes, stony
wastes, and saline lakes. Sandy gorges, in which water is rareh' seen on the
surface of the ground, converge towards the north of the twin oases in the "Wady
Missifer, which, under another name, winds througn the plain as far as the Great
Syrtis.
Although situated on the Mediterranean slope, Jofra belongs administratively to
the province of Fezzan. Its inhabitants long maintained their independence,
paying no taxes either to Tripoli or to Murzuk. At that time they constituted a
small but sufficiently powerfid republic, which afforded a refuge to the oppressed
AFRICA I. /
68
NORTH-WEST APEICA.
from all the surrounding lands. The population, at present estimated at six
thousand, was then much more numerous.*
In some of the Jof ra palm groves the water is of exquisite flavour ; nevertheless
the towns have been founded in the vicinity of the saline springs. Notwithstanding
this disadvantage, the oasis is one of the healthiest in the desert region. Ague is
imknown, and ophthalmia rare, while other maladies common in the oasis of
Fezzan never penetrate to Jofra. But although healthy and vigorous, the natives,
whether Berbers or Arabs, have a sickly look, with yellow parchment skins. Men
are seldom met amongst them distinguished by the regidarity of their features.
Although the Arabs, in their quality as the " chosen people " and followers of the
Fig. 16. — JoFEA Oasis.
Scale 1 : 700,000.
12 Miles.
Prophet, regard themselves as superior to the Berbers, they none the less recognise
the rights possessed by them as the first possessors of the soil. This position of
landowners has been maintained by the Berbers so exclusively that the Arabs are
able to acquire possession of the trees alone ; hence at times feuds and frays,
requiring the intervention of the Turkish troops stationed in Fezzan. The races
are doubtless so intermingled that it is difficult any longer to discriminate between
the two elements in Jofra. Nevertheless, a traditional convention enables the
Berbers to safeguard their primitive proprietary rights. The son, whatever the
origin of his mother, is always regarded as belonging to his father's nationality.
The gardens surrounding the towns of the oasis are admirably cultivated, and
yield in abundance cereals, tomatoes, garlic, onions, and other vegetables. During
• Lyun, '* Travels in Northern Africa."
TOPOGEAPHY.
59
harvest time the arms of the cultivators and their slaves are insufficient to garner
the crops, and then immigrants from Fezzan come to lend a hand as labourers for
a few weeks. Enriched by agriculture, the inhabitants of the oasis take no part in
trade, like the natives of Murzuk, Ghadames, and Ghat ; but the produce of their
fields finds a market through the medium of other Arab tribes. Ostrich farming,
pursued with success at the beginning of this century, has since been given up.
The present capital of the oasis is the walled town of Sokna, which contains
about one-third of the whole population, and at times gives its name to the whole
district. Its inhabitants belong almost exclusively to the Berber race, and still
speak the old language, mixed, however, with many Arabic expressions. Eon,
situated nearly in the centre of Jofra, in the eastern section of the oasis, is shared
by Berbers and Arabs in common. It is the most populous town in the country,
and at the same time owns the greatest extent of cultivated lands. Waclan, lying
farther east at the foot of the hills of like name, is a " holy city," thanks to its
Shorfa inhabitants, who enjoy the twofold honour attached to the descendants of
the Prophet and to the families that have emigrated from Marocco. Built in
amphitheatrical form on a cliff, Wadan presents a very picturesque appearance.
It is an old place, already mentioned centuries ago by the Arab geographers, and
formerly gave its name to the whole oasis. According to Eohlfs, its waUs would
appear to stand on Roman foundations.
Following the route which leads from the Jofra oasis towards Tripoli around
the eastern foot of the spurs of the plateau, the caravans have selected as their
chief station the village of Bu-Njeim, occupied by a few Orf eUa Arab families, who
live by trading with the passing merchants and the surrounding pastoral tribes.
The wells of Bu-Njeim, lying in a deep depression of the steiDpe at a height little
above sea-level, are visited by the herds of camels for a distance of 60 miles round
about. These animals are well acquainted with the roads leading to the watering-
place. Every month, and more frequently during the hot season, they proceed in
long processions to the Bu-Njeim wells, where they have at times to wait patiently
hours, and even days, for someone to water them. AU the other weUs of the
country, as far as the Beni- TJlid oasis, belong also to the Orf ella tribe.
In this extensive oasis, some fifty villages and hamlets, scattered amid groves of
olives and other fruit-trees, are permanently inhabited. Seen from the hiUs, the
valley of the wady, which is of limestone escarpments overlaid with lavas, and
ranging from 450 to 550 feet in height, looks like a river of verdure over half a
mile in width, and stretching east and west beyond the horizon. The olive groves
are divided into innumerable plots by dykes of large stones, which arrest the
overflow of the immdations, and at the same time serve to retain the vegetable
humus. The walls of the "Wady Beni UHd are sunk in some places to a depth of
over 130 feet.
A few groups of huts in the gorges of the plateau at the foot of the hamada,
may perhaps deserve the name of toAvns. Such are both Gharim — Gharia-esh-Sher-
kiya, the "eastern," and Ghnria-el-Gharhiya, the "western," situated in the depres-
sion of the wady tributary of the Zemzem. These two places, built at a distance
tjO NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
of about 12 miles from each other, and at an altitude of over 1,660 feet, were
formerly fortified, as indicated by their name, wliich means "fortress." The
western Gharia still preserves a superb Roman gateway, dating from the time of
the Antoniues, and presenting a singular contrast to the wi'etched Arab hovels
resting against its massive buttresses. The eastern town is noted for its excellent
dates, jnelded by plantations irrigated with a brackish water from the under-
groimd galleries of \he fog amis.
Misda, Ipng farther north in the upper valley of the Wady Sofejin, although
containing scarcely five hundi-ed inhabitants, is, nevertheless, a more important
place than either of the Gharias, owing to its position on a much-frequented caravan
route. At this point the road from Tripoli branches off in one direction towards
the south-west, where it ascends the hamada in the direction of Ghadames, in the
other southwards, across a. series of ridges skirting the eastern edge of the Red
Hamada in the direction of Murzuk. The inhabitants of Misda, of Berber origin,
but largely assimilated to the Arabs, although still preserving traces of the national
speech, belong entirely to the religious order of the Senusiya. At the time of
Earth's visit, in 1850, the convent possessed no wealth of any kind ; at present it
owns vast landed estates. In the surrounding districts are scattered numerous
ruins of tombs and other Roman monuments.
Although, comparatively well peopled, the Jebel Ghurian and the mountains
forming its western prolongation have no towns properly so-called, unless the
subterranean dwelling of Zenthan be regarded as such. In this place the plateau
is furrowed in every direction by ravines of slight depth, which serve as streets,
on either side of which artificial habitations have been excavated in the rocky
cliffs, where the white Limestone alternates with yeUow marl deposits. The softer
parts are removed in such a manner as to give the group of caves the disposition
of Moorish houses, with their courts and lateral chambers. But here the different
apartments of the several stories communicate by means of an outer ledge or rocky
projection, reached either by natural breaks and landings in the cliff, or by flights
of steps made of superimposed slabs.
These underground dwellings number altogether from one thousand to one
thousand two hundred, giving an approximate population of about six thousand
to the town of Zenthan. Above and round about the caves are planted the olive
proves, which form the chief resource of the inhabitants, arable lands being rare
in this part of the plateau. The fertile soil, which might be washed away by the
rains, is retained by walls round the roots of the trees. During field operations
and harvest, the troglodytes leave their abodes and camp out, a change which often
cures them of maladies contracted in their damp rocky retreats. Next to Zenthan,
the two most important centres of population on the Jebel Ghurian, are the hamlets
pTouped round the Turki.sh castles of Kasr Ghurian and KafiV-cl-Jehcl. The whole
district is relatively well peopled, containing, according to native report, as many as
" a himdred and one " villages.
But before meeting a city worthy of the name, the traveller must descend to
the coast ; here stands the capital, Tripoli^ which, however, is the only to^vn found
TOPOGEAPHY.
61
along the seaboard between Tunisia and Cyrenaica. Even the upland Tar-hona
plain, whose fertile soil formerly nourished a vast population, has nothing now to
show except scattered hamlets and Arab camping- grounds, besides Misrata, chief
toMTi of the maritime districts. This place, however, which lies near the headland
forming the western limit of the Great Syrtis, is little more than an obscure hamlet,
although officially described as the headquarters of forty-four villages. A stone
house, a modern Kghthouse, two or three irregular lanes lined with hovels, and a
few huts lost amid the palms and olive groves, make up the town of Misrata, which,
nevertheless, possesses some importance as a market for the surrounding towns.
Fig. 17. — The Khoms Coast Disteict, Teipolitana.
Scale 1 : 390,000.
„^ Castle Vr
14° 16-
L, I OT breenwicK
14" ?6
Depths.
0to32
Feet.
32 to 80
Feet.
80 to IGO
Feet.
160 Feet
and upwards.
6 Miles.
Carpets, matting, goat and camel-hair sacks are amongst the more valued products
of the local industry. In Misrata is found the mother-house of the famous order
of Sidi-el-Madani, whose founder emigrated from Medina in 1833, In the sixteenth
century Misrata was a wealthy place, enjoying a lucrative trade with Venice. It
was the starting-point of most of the caravans bound for Fezzan, and even till
recently those of Tripoli followed the coast route as far as Misrata in order to avoid
the dreaded hostile tribes of the Ghurian highlands.
West of Misrata follows Siiten, a town or rather a group of villages scattered
amid the palm groves, and partly inhabited by Marabuts and Jews. Then comes
the village of KJioms or Lehda, humble heiress of the ancient Leptis, whose
62 NOETH-WEST AFEICA.
splendour and extent formerly earned for it the title of Magna. The site of the
original Leptis, founded by refugees from Sidou, is a lofty headland bounded east-
wards by a rividet, the peninsular bluff defended landwards by three lines of
fortifications forming the acropolis. The breakwater, protecting the city from
the fury of the waves, is constructed of huge square blocks, like those at the island
of Ruad, on the coast of Syria. In this part of Africa, remains of the ancient
Phoenician architecture are still found in a perfect state of repair. Within the
line of quay walls occur at intervals vaulted recesses about 100 feet long, which
Barth thinks must have served as dry .docks for the Sidonian shipping.
South of the citadel, on the left bank of the rivulet, was gradually developed
the new city of Neapolis, which at last became one of the largest centres of popula-
tion in the Old "World. Himdi'eds of thousands of inhabitants were here grouped
together, and the edifices of this African city, partly constructed with the surround-
ing marbles, yielded in richness and beauty to those of Rome alone. But their
very ruins have been invaded by the sands, and many of these monuments lie
buried under dunes 60 or 70 feet high. A triumphal arch, the date of which is
still legible, was here erected by Marcus Aurelius ; but most of the buildings of
which any traces survive, such as basilicas and mausoleums, were constructed
during the reign of Septimius Severus, who was a native of Leptis, and who con-
ferred many privileges on the place. A few columns still lie scattered about, but
most of those recovered from the ruins have been removed to England or France,
and several now adorn the church of St. Germain des Pres in Paris. Amongst the
debris of Leptis have been found three beautiful cameos, besides a trilingual inscrip-
tion in Punic, Greek, and Latin, a monument bearing witness to the multitude of
strangers at one time resorting to this great African city.
Along the east bank of the rivulet stretched another quarter of Leptis, and on
the low point of land at its mouth stands a fort, which has often been rebuilt,
and which commands an extensive view of the ruined city, and beyond it of the
palm and olive groves and amphitheatre of Mcsellata hills, crowned with fortifica-
tions, in close proximity to the sea. The whol^ place occupied a superficial area
five times more extensive than that of the modern Tripoli. Although nearly
choked with sand, the port of Leptis continues to be frequented by vessels of light
draft, nearly all English, which during the fine season here take in cargoes of alfa
grass from the neighbouring steppes. According to the natives, olive culture dates
back to Egyptian times, and an oKve grove on the Mesellata heights containing
some enormous trees still bears the name of " Pharaoh's Wood."
A carriage route connecting Tripoli mth the Mesellata district at many points
skirts an ancient highway, which may be still recognised by the ruts worn in the
hard rock by the chariot-wheels of Carthaginians, Greeks, and Romans. Along
this route, the largest group of villages is that of Tajiirah, whose industrious
inhabitants occupy themselves at once with tillage, weaving, and dyeing. Tajurah
was formerly a bellicose place, constantly at war with the Knights of Malta.
TRIPOLI 63
Tripoli.
The present capital of TripoKtana has long ceased to rival the ancient Leptis
Magna in population or wealth. Tripoli is little more nowadays than a third-rate
city amongst those even of the Mediterranean seaboard, although of late years it
has been much improved and enlarged Like Leptis, it is of Phoenician origin.
Under the name of TJayat, Latinised to Oea, it was dedicated to the god Melkart,
greatest of Tyrian divinities, and during Carthaginian times rose to considerable
power. Of the three cities of Leptis, Sabratha and Oea, the last having been chosen
for the capital, ultimately took the general designation of the whole country.
Under the form of Tamholos, the Turks have preserved the Greek name of Tripoli,
distinguishing it however from its Syrian namesake by the epithet of El-Gharb,
that is, the " western " Tripoli.
A few ruins of Oea still exist, including deep cisterns and the foundations of
ramparts dating from the Phoenician times. There is even one fine building
perfectly preserved, besides a triumphal arch dedicated to Marcus Aurelius and
Lucius Aurelius Verus. This monument might be easily cleared of the sands in
which it at present lies half buried, and of the wretched structui-es encumbering its
pillars, which are formed of huge blocks of marble.
Seen from the sea, the town of Tripoli presents a charming sight. A ehain of
partly emerged reefs projects in the blue waters nearly two miles from the beach,
bearing at its landward extremity a massive tower and fortifications. Westwards
from this point the city sweeps round in a crescent form, separated from the shore
by a line of ramparts, which are overlooked by a row of white terraced houses, and
limited at the eastern extremity of the harbour by the solid buildings, gardens,
and palm groves of the governor's palace. Above the mosques and surrounding
houses are visible minarets as sKm as those of Turkey, and the flagstafEs and
banners of the various European Consulates. Above and beyond all are seerf the
citadel and the " French Lighthouse," completed in 1880.
Leo Af ricanus, who wrote about the beginning of the sixteenth century, relates
a tradition according to which Tripoli formerly occupied a more northerly site, and
in his time the foundations of the vanished city were said to be still visible beneath
the devouring waves. But this supposed subsidence of the ground can be little
more than a simple phenomenon of local erosion, for the present ramparts reit
partly on the foundations of the old walls of Oea itself.
The modern town, which is surrounded by broken ramparts dating from the
time of Charles Y., presents specimens of the most varied styles of architec-
ture. In the inner labyrinth of narrow tortuous streets, most of the houses, here
and there connected above the roadway by vaulted passages, have preserved their
Arab physiognomy with their bare white walls and courts enclosed by arcades.
Nearly all the structures erected by the Government — barracks, hospitals, prisons,
magazines — recall the vast Turkish establishments of like order in Constantinople ;
the Maltese quarter in its turn resembles the suburbs of some small Italian town ;
while the Marina is lined by sumptuous mansions like similar thoroughfares in the
6i
N0ETH-WE3T APEICA.
large European seaports. Even the architecture of the Niger regions is represented
in this Mediterranean city, in several of whose ruins are grouped huts roofed with
branches, Kkc those of "Western Sudan. The Bedouins of Tripolitana have learnt
this style of building from their Negro slaves.
Although still a very dirty place, muddy and dusty in turn, or both simul-
taneously, Tripoli has been much embellished since the middle of the present
century. The Jtam, or Jewish quarter, still remains a labyrinth of filthy lanes and
alleys ; but a central boulevard now intersects the old town from end to end ; the
bazaar, occupied by Maltese and Jeraba dealers, has been enlarged, and new suburbs
Fig. 18.— Tripoli.
Scale 1 : 75,000.
wm&Wiym^m^:^:;y'-;-' ::■-■■:■■:■ .-/^^^^
iS'io-
L . of breenwich
15°I2'
Oto 16
Feet.
Depths.
16 to 32
Feet.
32 to 80
Feet.
- 2,200 YardB.
80 Feet
and upwards.
developed amid the surrounding gardens. Artesian wells have even been sunk to
supply the deficiency of good drinking water, the contents of the cisterns being
usually insufficient for more than six or seven months in the year. But hitherto
the borings have yielded nothing but a brackish fluid. The urban population has
considerably increased, mow numbering about thirty thousand souls, amongst
whom are compri.sed four thousand or five thousand Europeans, mostly Italians
and Maltese. The natives of both sexes wear nearly the same costume, the only
diiferencc being the different arrangement of their /laiih' or toga. Three of these
togas — gauze, silk, and wool — are commonly worn by the women one over the other.
illlirrlllllil'i«lllllliilililllillliliillllil«iili|iliinililiiiiiniiiiiliiiimiiitftf//»/w/»"Mi
P
cc
P
<!
O
oi
w
H
o
«
13
O
P-(
s
H
TEIPOLI. 65
The so-called Meshiya, a belt of palm-groves encircling the city, with an
average breadth of 9 miles, is itself a populous district, containing, according to
KrafEt, about thirty thousand inhabitants. Here the emancipated Negroes from
Bornu and the Niger states have resumed the same mode of life as in their native
hamlets ; here are also nomad Arabs, who pitch their tents beneath the palms near
some holy shrine ; Maltese dealers, whose stalls or inns are usually established at
the cross roads ; retired Europeans or Turks occupying some pleasant country seat
amid the verdant and flowering thickets. But in some places the Meshiya is
threatened by the sands of an ancient marine inlet. Many gardens are already
covered with dunes from 100 to 130 feet high, and elsewhere the trimks of the
trees have been swallowed up, leaving nothing but the topmost branches mournfuUy
beating the sands in the breeze.
To this zone of dunes the people of TripoK improperly give the name of
" desert," through a sort of vanity leading them to fancy themselves near neigh-
bours of the Sahara, from which they are nevertheless separated by the whole
region of steppes and by the Ghurian highlands. At the same time Tripoli and
its outskirts present in many respects the aspect of an oasis, beyond which the
caravans have at once to follow the track of dried- up watercourses. In the Meshiya
itself innumerable wells have been sunk to an extensive underground reservoir,
which has never been pumped dry by the irrigation works, and which near the
coast lies within 3 or 4 feet of the surface. The water wells up spontaneously
through the sands left exposed during exceptionally low neap tides.
For the internal trade with the Tsad and Niger basins, Tripoli is more
favourably situated than more western cities, such as Tunis, Bona, Algiers, and
Oran, inasmuch as it communicates directly with the regions draining to the
Gulf of Guinea. Two main routes, one through Murzuk, the other through
Ghadames, and connected together by intermediate byways, enable Tripoli to
maintain constant relations with the towns of the Bornu and Haussa states.
Before the year 1873, the caravan traders of Ghadames enjoyed a monopoly of the
commerce with these countries ; but since then the Jewish merchants of Tripoli
Lave organised a caravan traffic from their very doors, based on the principle of
co-operation with the tribal chiefs escorting the convoys, who receive half profits
on all the transactions, and who on their part render a faithful account of all their
operations. *
During the year from Tripoli are usually despatched from six to eight large
caravans, each comprising from one thousand to three thousand camels, and always
escorted by hundreds of armed Arabs, who venture fearlessly into hostile territories.
The journey generally takes between two and three months to the first towns in the
north of Sudan. Several merchants are associated to a greater or less extent in the
common speculation ; but they are seldom able to realise their respective shares in
the profits under two years, for it takes a long time to negotiate on advantageous terms
an exchange of the cotton goods, Maria-Theresa crown pieces and other European
objects for such native products as ostrich feathers, ivory, gold dust, and slaves,
and the Tripoli dealers have often to send their wares to many markets before
06 NORTH-WEST AFEICA.
finding purchasers. The return trip is reported from Sokna or Ghadames by
couriers mounted on meharis, and fresh negotiations are then opened with the
European dealers in anticipation of the approaching convoy.
Since "Wadai has vohmtarily suspended its commercial relations with Egypt,
and especially since the revolt of the Upper Nile pro%ances from the Khedival
rule, a fresh current of traffic has been established across north-east Africa through
Dar-For and "Wadai to Tripoli, from which, instead of from Alexandria, Kordofan
procured its supplies and materials of war during the rebellion of the late Mahdi.
At the same time the chief source of prosperity for Tripoli of late years has been
its export trade in alfa grass, of which about thirty-six thousand tons were shipped
for Europe in 1875.
Besides its monopoly of the direct commercial exchanges with the interior of
the continent, Tripoli also enjoys the advantage of a favourable geographical
position at a central point on the Mediterranean seaboard in proximity to Malta,
Sicily, and Southern Italy. Nevertheless its trade, although six times more than
that of the whole of Tripolitana in 1825, is much inferior to that either of Tunis
or of Algiers, towns which have to supply the needs of a far larger local popula-
tion, and in which the European element is much more strongly represented.
Great Britain, mistress of Malta, with which Tripoli is in almost daily com-
munication, enjoys more than one-half of the whole trade of the place ; she
supplies nearly all the cotton goods, here known as " Maltese," from the name of
the neighbouring insular depot, taking in exchange the great bulk of all the aKa
grass of the country. The Italians, represented in the town by abnost all the
European inmiigrants, occupy the second position in the movement of exchanges.
Till recently France ranked even after Turkey in the general trade and shipping ;
but since the seizure of the neighbouring province of Tunisia, her share in the
traffic has considerably increased.
But the importance of Tripoli as a great emporium of trade must continue some-
what precarious until its harbour has been deepened and sheltered from dangerous
winds. During the month of January especially the approaches are much dreaded,
and at this season vessels are often driven ashore by the prevailing north-westerly
gales. The natural barrier of reefs urgently requires to be raised some feet higher
in order more effectually to break the force of the surf, while other reefs obstruct-
ing the entrance will have to be cleared away. The channel is only from 16 to 20
feet deep at low water, and vcrj' little over 20 at the flow ; but vessels drawing
more than 13 or 14 feet cannot venture to cross the bar without risk of grounding.
"West of Tripoli the monotony of the Mediterranean seaboard is relieved by
some pleasant districts, where a few permanent villages have been foimded. But
farther inland the naturally fertile and abundantly watered plains of Jefara are
inhabited almost exclusively by nomad communities. They might easily be
changed, says Bohlfs, into a second Mitija, richer than that of Algiers. The
coast route traverses Zetiznr and Zaiuja, chief town of the eastern division of
Tripolitana, beyond which appear the ruins of the ancient Sahratha of the Phoe-
nicians, that is, the " market," one of the three cities which took the collective
TEIPOLI.
67
name of Tripolis. The decay and final extinction of tMs place dates probably from
tbe eighth century of the new era. To the ruins of Sabratha and of the little
hamlet resting under the old walls, the ItaKans have given the name of Tripoli
Vecchio, or " Old Tripoli," a title unwarranted by history and without any Arabic
equivalent.
Farther on lies the little port of Zoarah, whose palm- groves, like those of
TripoK, are threatened by the encroaching sands. Zoarah is the last town of
Tripolitana in this direction. A neighbouring strip of sand, the Ras-el-Makhhas,
has become famous for the vast salt beds it serves to protect. In the thirteenth
century the Venetians obtained from the Emir of Tripoli the exclusive privilege of
working the sebkha of the Ras-el-Makhbas, or Zoarah, and so important became
this industry that the Republic appointed special magistrates to regulate its opera-
tions. Every year at a stated period a Venetian fleet cast anchor in the Bay of
Ras-el-Makhbas, and shipped cargoes of salt for the whole of North Italy, Switzer-
land, Tyrol, and Dalmatia. But in the eighteenth century the Venetians were
ousted by the Grenoese as farmers of these salines.
South and south-west stretches the frontier zone, which was long a sort of
borderland, given up to lawless and marauding tribes. After the recent occupation
of Tunis by the French, about 75,000 Arabs of the southern tribes took refuge in
this almost desert region, and being unable to procure any sustenance from the
thankless soil, took to raiding in all the surrounding territories. At present most
of these fugitives have returned to their native steppes, leaA^ing the wilderness
again in the possession of the Nuails and a few other nomad tribes.
CHAPTER V.
FEZZAN.
OLITICALLY Fezzan belongs to tlie Turkish province of Tripolitana;
by its position to the south of the Jebel-es-Soda, as well as its
climate, it forms part of the zone of the Sahara ; by its prevailing
Negro population it depends more even on the region of Sudan
than on that of North Africa. At the same time, the relative large
extent of its oases, and their easy access by the routes from Tripoli, constitute it an
intermediate region between the seaboard and the Sahara. In former times the
Roman occupation had attached this territory of "Phazania" to the Mediterranean
world. They were succeeded by the Arabs, who arrived as conquerors during the
first half century of the Hegira. Then came the Turks, heirs of Rome through
Constantinople, whose authority was finally established early in the present century
after a long series of wars, promoted not by a love of freedom on the part of the
inhabitants, but by the rival ambitions of families aiming at the sovereign power.
At present the products of Europe are introduced to a large extent through
Fezzan into the heart of the continent, and thus is gradually brought about the
work of assimilation between its various races. But whatever importance it may
possess as the commercial gateway to Central Africa, Fezzan coimts for little in
respect of population, which, according to Nachtigal's detailed statistical statement,
amounts at most to forty-three thousand, and to thirty-seven thousand only if we
exclude the inhabitants of the oases lying north of the watershed. Even accepting
Rohlfs higher estimate of two hundred thousand for the whole region, the propor-
tion would be considerably less than two persons to the square mile ; for within its
natural limits between the Black Mountains to the north, the spurs of the Jcbel
Ahaggar to the west, the advanced escarpments of Tibcsti to the south, and the
Libyan desert to the east, Fezzan has a superficial area of at least 120,000 square
miles. But the administrative circumscription of Fezzan is far more extensive, as
it includes, north of the Black Mountains, the oases of Zclla and Jofra, and all the
lands draining to the Mediterranean as far as Bu-Njeim.
During the last hundred years, Fezzan has been visited by many European
travellers. In 1798, Homemann, one of the missionaries sent by the African
Exploration Society, traversed both the Black and the White Jlariij by a track
PHYSICAL FEATURES. 69
which has been followed by no subsequent western explorer. Twenty years later
Lyon surveyed the chief trade route connecting Tripoli through Jofra with
Murzuk, and determined a few astronomical points, which were afterwards extended
by the researches of Oudney, Denham, and Clapperton. The expedition of the
year 1850, associated with the names of Barth, Overweg, and Richardson, followed
the direct highway across the Red Hamada wilderness. Then came the important
explorations of Yogel, Duveyrier, Beurmann, E,ohlfs, Yon Bary, and J^achtigal,
who have not only laid down the network of their own itineraries, but have also
supplemented them with many others, on the authority of numerous Arab informers.
Thus, to mention one instance, Rohlf s has published an account of the discovery of
one of the Wan oases by Mohammed-el-Tarhoni, an Arab of Zella.
In its general outlines, Fezzan presents the form of an amphitheatre gradually
inclined towards the east, and on the other three sides encircled by plateaux. Its
mean altitude is about 1,650 feet, the lowest levels of the oases nowhere probably
falling below 650 feet. According to Barth, the deepest depression occurs at the
Sharaba wells, east of Murzuk, where a lacustrine basin receives the drainage of an
extensive area, and remains flooded for months together.
Physical Features.
The vast region enclosed by the escarpments of the plateau is itself a somewhat
broken coimtry, the general relief of which, as well as its mean elevation, shows
that it has not certainly formed a marine basin during recent geological times,
notwithstanding the theories lately advanced to the contrary by some eminent
geographers, not only for Fezzan, but for the whole of the Sahara. Nevertheless
in many places traces are visible of the former presence of salt water, and the
submergence of the land at some very remote period is attested both by the
undulating Hues of shifting sands dri^^g before the winds on the western plateau,
and by the polished pebbles of diverse colours strewn like mosaics over the surface
of the eastern serirs. The space encircled by the surrounding plateau consists in
great part of secondary terraces, whose main axis runs in the direction from west
to east, and which are separated from each other by crevasses with a mean depth of
about 150 feet. These narrow, tortuous intermediate depressions take the name
of " wadies," like the beds of temporary watercourses in the northern parts oi
TripoKtana, but as they are never flushed by any freshets, a more appropriate
designation would be that of Lofra or " ditch," which in fact is applied to one of
these depressions in the Murzuk district. Some are mere ravines of sand or hard
clay, while others present the aspect of verdant glens shaded by overhanging
palm-trees. Although not forming a flm-ial system properly so caUed, they
generally converge one towards another, without, however, always reaching the
common bed towards the east of Fezzan. In this direction the unfinished channels
are obstructed by sands and reefs.
The southern slopes of the Jebel-es-Soda and of the Black Haruj present a
very gradual incline. They are prolonged southwards by the spurs and terraces of
70 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
the Ben-Afien serir, plateaux of slight elevation strewn vritli stones and shingle,
which o-reatly impede the progress of the wayfarer. South of the crest of the
Jebel-es-Soda a space of about 80 miles has to be traversed before reaching the
escarpment at the foot of which begins Fezzan properly so called. In this almost
absolutely desert district the stony surface is broken only by a single green depres-
sion, that of the Fogha oasis. The base of the Red Hariij is abruptly limited by
the TVady Heran, the first occurring in Fezzan proper, A few trees are here
occasionally met in the moist depressions near the wells ; but throughout nearly
its whole course the wady presents little to the traveller's wearied gaze beyond
shifting sands interspersed with sandstone blocks blackened by the heat. Never-
Fig. 19. — Routes of the Chief Exploeees in Fezzan.
Scale 1 : 700,000.
39'
SO"
\ ■■>.... i^r,>^-»^-i
Ed.r. .. • V
■• .-■ •' ; >
'^Z / /■': \
A" ■■■•"'•. ; \
&D
ps
Ou.ou
■0
L - of Greenw'.c
K ;S-
H., Homemann.
D. & C, Denham and Clapperton.
Rich., Richai'dson.
v., Vogel.
Bt. & O., Barth and Overweg.
R., Eohlfs.
Duv., l)uveyTier.
By., Biiry.
N., Nachtigal.
B., Beuermann.
120 Miles.
fheless, the aspect of the valley changes at its confluence with a broader wady
skirted on the north by the escarpments of the spurs of the Black Mountains.
The bed of this Wady-esh-Shiati, as it is called, is covered with a layer of humus,
through which the roots of the palm-trees penetrate to a mean depth of 10 feet
before striking the moist sands underneath. According to the measurements
taken by diiferent explorers, the altitude of the wady varies from 1,1jO to 1,650
feet, but from these data no idea can be formed of the real slope of the valley,
which may possibly be even more elevated towards the centre than at either
extremity,
Soutli of the Wady-osh-Shiati, which is lost eastwards amid the cliffs of the
White llardj, the ground merges in a terrace which in some places has a breadth
LAKES AND WADIES. 71
of about 60 miles ; but its surface is broken here and there by small verdant
depressions, mostly inhabited, and by some narrow wadies. Amongst these is the
Wady Zelaf, a remarkable fissure in the ground overgrown with a forest of palms,
whose delicious fruit is the common property of all wayfarers. Custom, however,
forbids them to carry away any supplies, and what is not consumed on the spot by
passiug caravans is gathered by the inhabitants of the Esh-Shiati.
The western part of the plateau intersected by the wooded Zelaf watercourse is
occupied by the so-called edeijen, that is, in the Temahaq dialect of the eastern
Tuaregs, " sandhills." According to M. Duveyrier, who traversed it at two
points, this sea of sands stretches for a distance of 480 miles in the direction from
west to east, with a mean breadth of 50 miles. Towards the part of the plateau
crossed by the main caravan route between Tripoli and Murzuk, the hitherto
uninterrupted sandy surface becomes decomposed into a number of low eminences
and distinct archipelagoes of sandhills, which are nowhere disposed in regular
ranges, but rise in some places in completely isolated heights. !N^orth of Jerma,
Earth's caravan found the winding lines of dunes so difficult to cross, that the men
were obliged to level the crests with their hands before the camels could gain a
footing. But the sandhills attain a still greater elevation farther west, where by
trigonometrical measurement Yogel found one eminence rising 540 feet above a
small lake occupying a depression in the plateau.
Lakes a>;d Wadies.
The explorer is often surprised to meet in this almost rainless region permanent
or intermittent lakes in the midst of the dunes. In a single group north of the
Murzuk hamada there are as many as ten, nearly all, however, of difficult access,
owing to the hillocks of fine sand encircliug them, in which the foot sinks at every
step. Two of these basins contain chloride of sodium and carbonate of soda, like
the natron lakes of the Egyptian desert ; hence the designation of Bahr-el-Trunia,
or " Sea of Xatron," applied to one of the Fezzan lakes. Several other lacustrine
basins are inhabited by a peculiar species of worm, highly appreciated by the
epicures of the district. The lake yielding the most abundant supplies of this
delicacy is specially known as the Bahr-el-Dud, or " Sea of TVorms," and the local
fishermen take the name of duwada, or "worm-grubbers." This sheet of water,*
fringed by palms and almost circular in form, has a circumference of about 600
miles, with a depth in the lowest part, measured by Yogel, of 26 feet. But owing
to the almost viscous consistency of the excessively saline water, it appears far
deeper to the natives, who regard it as fathomless. Invalids from all parts of
Fezzan frequent it in crowds, first bathing in this basin, and then plunging in
some neighbouring freshwater pool, in which is dissolved tne incrustation of salt
covering their bodies.
The worm, known to naturalists by the name of ariemia Oudneyi, is the larva
of a diptera, whose serpentine body, one-third of an inch long, and of a gold-red
colour Kke that of the cj'prinus of China, flits about like a flash of fire, with surj^ris-
72 NOETH-WEST APEICA.
ino" velocity amid the animalculoe swarming on the surface of the lake. By means
of fine nets the larva is captured, together with other larvae which prey on it, and
the fucus on which it feeds. The whole is then kneaded into a sort of paste,
which has a flavour resembling that of shrimps " a little gamy." The mess is
mostly used as a sauce or relish with other aliments.
The plateau of dunes is abruptly terminated southwards by the depression of
the "Wady Lajal, which runs mainly in the direction from west- south-west to east-
north-east for a total distance of nearly 300 miles between the deserts separating
Rhat from Fezzan, and those stretching towards the White Haruj. But the
depressions in this wady are occupied by oases for a space of not more than 120
miles altogether, with a mean breadth of about 5 miles.
Towards its source in the west, the Wady Lajal has an elevation of 2,000 feet
above sea-level, falling to 1,350 at the point where it merges in the eastern deserts.
The most striking contrast is presented by the opposite banks of the wady, those
on the north side consisting of gently rounded sandy heights, while on the south
rise abrupt cliffs, a continuation of the partly Devonian Amsak range, which
commands the entrance of the valley. Near the centre two corresponding sandy
and rocky headlands projecting towards each other divide the depression into two
sections, respectively known from their geographical position as the "Wady-el-
Gharbi and "Wady-esh-Sherki. The latter, or " eastern " wady, which is the
largest, is connected eastwards with the palm-groves of Sebha, beyond which it is
interrupted by the desert, reappearing again in the small oases of Temenhint,
Semnu, and Zighen. The position of these oases seems to indicate the existence of
a former tributary between the Wadies Lajal and Esh-Shiati ; but the whole valley
is now obstructed by sands.
Like that of other depressions in Fezzan, the soil of the "Wady Lajal is formed
of heisha — that is, a very light humus saturated with salt and swollen by the com-
bined action of heat and the underground waters. Saline efflorescences in many
places develop a central zone skirted on either side by cultivated tracts at the foot
of the cliffs and sandhills. In the Wady Lajal the mean depth of the water is
about 12 feet ; hence it is unnecessary to irrigate the palms, which derive sufficient
moisture through their roots. But the water required for the cereals and vege-
tables is obtained from the wells, into which is plunged an apparatus made of date-
•wood, looking at a distance like shears for masting of ships, or the cranes mounted
on the wharves of seaport towns. Notwithstanding the statement of Rohlfs to the
contrary, there appear to exist in Fezzan the so-called fogarats, or systems of
irrigation wells, one of which was visited by M. Duveyrier on the slope of the
southern cliffs of the wady, not far from Jerma.
The Murzuk hamada, which separates the Wady Lajal from the depression
specially kno\\Ti as tte Ilofra, or " Ditch," forms an extensive plateau almost
uniformly level, except on its northern verge, partly skirted by the abrupt Amsak
range, and at a few other points furrowed by crevasses either occupied by oases or
at least containing artificial wells. Such is the Godva oasis, traversed by most of
the caravans between Murzuk and Tripolitana. Narrowing towards its western
OASES OF FEZZAN.
73
extremity to a space of not more than a day's march in breadth, the Murzuk
hamada broadens out eastwards, gradually merging in the stony serirs and the
unexplored deserts skirted on the north by the limestone terraces of the White
Haruj. In its western section it is limited southwards by the narrow "Wady
Aberjush, beyond which recommence the stony plateaux. These desolate wastes,
which are continued indefinitely southwards in the direction of the Tibbu territory,
are destitute of any vegetation beyond a few straggling gum-trees in their depres-
sions. But towards the east is developed the vast semicircular basin of the Hofra,
the great central cavity in which is situated Murzuk, present capital of Fezzan.
This low-lying region is divided by waste and stony tracts into two clearly defined
sections : to the west the Murzuk oasis, to the east that of Esh-Sherkiya, or " the
Fig. 20.— Oases of Fezzax.
Scale 1 : 7,000,000.
"•^
^
*.
m
Jj^
y-j
'Wac
E .af Gr.
v'».;;-i?.~,'-i«i
las'
The towns and \-illages are surroTinded by oases.
— ^^-~-^— — — . 120 Miles.
Eastern." The latter consists in reality of a long narrow chain of oases sub-
divided into nimierous secondary depressions, which are separated from each other
by sandy ridges, without presenting anywhere any regular slope.
Oases of Fezzan.
The various oases vary in altitude from 1,000 to 1,650 feet, and Temissa, the
last in the direction of the east, is everywhere surrounded- by soKtudes. The bed
of the Hofra, like that of the other depressions in Fezzan, consists of heisha ; here,
however, containing rather more argillaceous soil than elsewhere. But this clay is
saturated with salt to such an extent that the unbaked earthen bricks of the houses
are dissolved during the heavy rains. The water drawn from the deep wells is
APEICA I. g
7i NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
also 80 brackish that strangers find it very unpalatable. In several places it rises
to the surface, spreading out in sebkhas or swamps, which are usually fringed by
a crystalline zone of salt.
The Hofra, with its eastern prolongation, the Sherkiya, lies south of the last
great oasis in Fezzan. Along the route towards the plateau, 2,500 feet high, which
separates this region from the Tibbu domain, caravans meet nothing but a few wells
and the two small oases of Gatroiin and Tejerri. Eastwards, in the direction of
Kufra, the desert is even more dreary than towards the south. Serirs, dunes, saline
depressions follow in succession for a space of over 120 miles before the traveller
reaches a first oasis, that of "Wau-el-Kebir, or, " the Great Wau," which was
imknown to geographers before the journey of Beurmann in 1862. It was occupied
by a Xegroid Tibbu population down to the year 1841, when they were driven out
by marauding Arab tribes, who made it the centre of their raiding expeditions.
The Tibbus attempted in vain to recover this oasis, although the conquering tribe
was expelled in its turn, and at the time of Beurmann's visit "Wau was held by
members of the Senusiya brotherhood, who, being all ceKbates, allowed no women
to reside in the place. Beurmann was informed that at a distance of three days'
march westwards there was another oasis, known by the name of Wau-es-Serir, " the
little Wau," or "Wau-Namus, " Mosquito "Wau ; " but no one in the district was
able to show him the route to follow, the only person acquainted vnih the oasis
having recently died at an advanced age.
This lost depression is the same that was rediscovered in the year 1876 by the
Arab Mohammed Tarhoni, aided by a few volimtary explorers from Zella. Unlike
Great Wau, it is uninhabited, although numerous potherbs and palm groves cleared
of their undergrowth show that imtil recently it supported a small population,
probably of Tibbu stock. Besides date-palms, its flora comprises acacias and
tamarisks, as well as shrubs of smaller growth. In the rocks is found a deposit of
" fine yellow sulphur," while a small lake in the centre of the oases accounts for the
swarms of winged insects, whence it takes its name. The former inhabitants had
settled on " a very high mountain " above the lake and the clouds of mosquitoes.
According to local tradition, there exists to the south-east another oasis, the
Wau-Harir, a valley clothed with a rich vegetation, and inhabited by a large
number of animals, such as moufflons, gazelles, and antelopes, which have not yet
lesrnt to fear man, and allow themselves to be attacked and speared. Camels
which have lapsed into the wild state are also said to herd beneath the shade of the
palms along the banks of the streamlets watering this mysterious oasis.
Climate of Fezzan.
Lying imder a more southern latitude than Tripolitana, properly so called,
Fezzan has naturally a higher temperature, ranging from 81° to 83'^ F. Never-
theless the cold is more intense, both on account of its greater distance from the
sea, which always exercises a moderating influence on climates, and also in
consequence of the greater purity of the atmosphere causing at night a free
FLORA OF FEZZAN. 75
radiation of heat into space. Still the sky is seldom perfectly cloudless, the lovely
azure of temperate zones being here replaced by milky white tints and the striated
cirri of the upper atmospheric regions. In December, and during the first half of
January, the thermometer at simrise seldom rises above 42° or 43° F., and in many
parts of the plateau water often freezes at night. Snow is even said to have been
observed on the mountains encircling the country.
On the other hand, the excessive heat is almost intolerable for strangers. If,
according to Lyon, the summer average is already 90° F. at Murzuk, Duveyrier
here twice recorded in July a temperature of 110° F. in the shade, while in the
desert, properly so called, the glass often rises to over 121° F. In the sun it
exceeds 170° and even 187° F. Altogether Fezzan belongs to the climatic zone of
the Sahara, in which the extremes of temperature suffice, in the language of
Herodotus, to consume the very heart of the country. Where are the rocks capable
of resisting the expansions and contractions caused by extremes of heat and cold,
whose mean annual discrepancy amounts to 198° and possibly even 208° F. ?
The rainfall also is all the lighter in Fezzan, that the moisture-bearing clouds
from the north are arrested by the Jebel-es-Soda and Black Haruj ranges. There
is even a complete absence of dew, owing to the dryness of the air. Yet, strange
to say, the inhabitants of the country do not themselves desire rainy weather, not
only because it washes away their earthern cabins, but also on account of its
injurious effects on the palm-trees, by interfering with the normal system of
irrigation from the subterranean supplies. "Rain water is death, underground
water is quickening," says the native proverb. Heavy showers fall usually in
winter and spring, that is, from December to April, when the northern winds
contend for the supremacy with those from the south.
Flora of Fezzan.
The great extremes of heat and cold have as their natural accompaniment a
correspondingly impoverished flora. Plants unable to adapt themselves to the
severe colds and intense heats, all alike perish in this climate. Even in the sheltered
depressions of the desert there are scarcely any spontaneous growths, beyond a few
talha acacias of scanty foliage, pale tamarisks, the thorny alhagi, on which the
camel browses, the sandy colocynth, alf a grass, some scrub, a species of salsola, and
two or three herbs. The cultivated are perhaps more numerous than the wild
species, although in many of the gardens of the oases there is a great lack of
variety. In some of the wadies are grown wheat, barley, and several other kinds
of cereals, the gombo, whose pulpy fruit is highly appreciated by the Arabs, some
thirty species of vegetables enumerated by Nachtigal, amongst which are comprised
nearly all those growing in European gardens. The fig and almond }ae.ld excellent
fruit, but most of the other fruit-trees of the temperate zone are rare, or represented
only by a few stunted specimens.
The oHve reaches no farther south than the Wady Otba, to the west of Murzuk.
Tobacco, cotton, and indigo flourish in the gardens of Fezzan, but the supply is
76 N0ETH-T\T:ST AFRICA.
very limited. The gum-tree, especially in the Wady Lajal round about the Ubari
oasis, yields an excellent gum, by no means despised by the Targui when there is a
dearth of other aliments. But of still more importance in the economy of the
country are the plants yielding fodder, such as luzerne, clover, and several varieties
of melilotus (sweet clover).
In Fezzan the date finds a thoroughly congenial home. According to the
natives, it thrives best in the Hofra district, and especially in the oasis in the centre
of which lies the town of Traghen. Nowhere else is it found gro\^'ing in greater
profusion, or with such dense masses of foliage. No less than three hundred
varieties are reckoned in the whole country, of which over thirty occur in the single
oasis of Murzuk. Forests springing spontaneously from the scattered date-stones
are so numerous that their produce is left to the gazelles. In the oases the
cultivated palms are crowded together in prodigious quantities, in that of Murzuk
alone no less than a million being claimed by the Turkish Government, which also
possesses large numbers in other plantations. In a country so destitute of other
plants, it is impossible to overrate the economic importance of this marvellous plant,
whose fruit, stem, branches, sprouts, fibre, sap, are all turned to account.
Dates and cereals form the staple food of the settled communities, while for the
nomads the date, with camel's milk, yields an all-satisfying and perfect nourishment.
The domestic animals, including even the dogs, also consume this fruit, either as
their chief food, or in the absence of their more customary aliment. It has been
noticed that nearly all the inhabitants of Fezzan suffer from decayed teeth, the
cause affecting them being attributed to the too exclusive use of the date, which,
although greatly superior to that of the Tripolitan seaboard, is still inferior to the
Egyptian and Algerian varieties.
F.AUNA OF Fezzan.
The absence of pasturage prevents the native populations from occupying
themselves with stock-breeding in a large way. The domestic animals are of
extremely small size, and relatively no more numerous than wild animals, which
find but a scanty supply of herbs and water. The " lion of the desert " does not
prowl over the solitudes of Fezzan, where the wayfarer meets neither the panther
no^- the hyaena. Not even the jackal's nightly howl is heard round the villages
and camping- grounds, which are infested only by the long-eared fennec fox.
Gazelles and antelopes, described by Lyon under the name of " buffaloes," must be
very rare, this game being nowhere exposed for sale in the market-places.
A few vultures, wall falcons and ravens, swallows and sparrows, everjnvhere the
constant associates of man, are almost the only birds seen in Fezzan, except during
the summer months, when doves and wild duck arrive in large flocks from more
southern regions where they have passed the winter.
In the courts and farmyards are seen neither poultry nor pigeons. Goats and
sheep degenerate, and nearly all those bred in the country are characterised by
long bony frames, stiff tail, small head, and fine coats. The horned cattle.
INHABITANTS OF FEZZAN. 77
introduced from the north, are all of small size, and resist the climate badly.
Horses are found only in the stables of chiefs and grandees, and scarcely fifty are
said to exist in the whole country.
The only quadruped extensively employed in the service of man is the camel,
which is of the Ai'ab species, differing little from the variety common in the
Tuareg territory. The largest and finest breeds are found in the Black Mountains
and the Haruj district. Here they are clothed in winter with a dense coating of
hair, which is shorn once a year, and employed for weaving carpets and tent-cloths.
According to most authorities, the camel was not introduced from Egj^t into the
more westerly regions of Libya before the first century of the vulgar era, before
which time the Garamantes made use of oxen, of horses, and wheeled carts in their
journeys across the dunes and serirs. This circumstance indicates a great change
of climate during the last two thousand years, for at the present time it would be
impossible to traverse these solitudes without the aid of the camel. The rock
carvings still seen at TeHssarhe, in the south-western part of Fezzan, represent with
great accuracy herds of cattle on their way to the watering-places. On these rocks
have also been recognised sketches figuring a horse and an ass.
Inhabitants of Fezzan.
The inhabitants of Fezzan belong to all the races of North Africa, constituting
an essentially mixed population, in which the primitive elements appear to be the
fair Berbers and the dark Ethiopians, the oldest occupants of the land. In more
recent times the Arabs, especially the Aulad Sliman family from Egypt and
Cyrenaica, have also largely contributed to renew or modify the local population.
Formerly, when the Barbary corsairs still scoured the Mediterranean waters, a
number of Italian captives were regularly introduced into the harems of the
Murzuk sheikhs, thus supplying an additional ethnical element possessing a
certain relative importance in a region so sparsely peopled.
Amongst the natives of Fezzan is seen every shade of colour, from a deep
black to an almost fair complexion. Rohlfs even tells us it frequently happens
that, by a phenomenon of which the inhabitants of Spanish America offer many
examples, individual members of the family have spotted skins — white on a black,
or black on a white ground. The blacks of Fezzan are also often seen with long,
sleek hair, while that of the whites is on the contrary short and woolly. On the
whole the predominant colour may be said to be that of the yellow Malays,
although the hair and features are those rather of the Negro stock.
Besides that of the Tuareg Berbers, several languages are current amongst
these mixed communities. The most prevalent is Kjyiuri, the speech of the
kingdom of Bomu ; and several local names of villages, wells, and other places
attest a long residence in Fezzan of the Bornu Negroes, descendants probably of
the Garamantes. All the adult men understand Arabic, the language of commerce;
and the dialects of Haussa, and other parts of North Africa, are also heard in the
cabins of the Fezzan Negroes.
78 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
The Tuareo-s of this region, a smaller and feebler race than those of the Jebel
Ahao-o-ar, in the south of Algeria, roam for the most part in the south-eastern
districts between Murzuk and Rhat. These belong to the Tizilkum group, free
men. who despise the Arab, base "payer of tribute." They are members of the
brotherhood of Mohammed-el-Madani, whose mother-house is at Misrata, and they
o-enerally speak Arabic. According to Richardson, they number altogether about
a thousand.
Slavery, which has so largely contributed to cross the original population of
the country, has scarcely diminished, notwithstanding the formal edicts against
the traffic issued in Fezzau by order of the Osmanli authorities. The exportation
has doubtless fallen off ; but the slaves, no longer forwarded to the seaports of
Tripolitana, or through the Aujila and Siwah oases to Egypt, tend only to increase
the local enslaved class. According to Nachtigal, from five to eight thousand slaves
passed every year through Fezzan towards the middle of the present century ; but
in 1870 the gangs had been reduced to about one-third of that number.
The blacks who remain in the country have seldom occasion to regret their lot.
Here they are absolutely regarded as members of the family into which they have
entered, and those amongst them who return to their native homes usually do so
not as fugitives, but as commercial agents in the interest of their late masters.
The Fezzanese are altogether of a remarkably mild disposition ; but moraKty is at
a very low ebb, and many children perish abandoned on the threshold of the
mosques and convents. Whoever chooses to pick up one of these foimdlings
becomes its adopted father, and never fails to treat it as one of his own children.
The traffic in slaves has hitherto been replaced by no other more legitimate
trade. The only important article of export is soda from the " Natron lakes," a
few tons of which are yearly sold in the Tripoli market. The time has gone by
when gold dust, ivory, and ostrich feathers contributed, with slaves, to enrich the
Fezzan traders ; who, however, were never able to compete successfully with their
commercial rivals of Ghadames, Jofra, and Aujila. Although the produce for-
warded from Sudan to the coast passes through their territory, they derive little
profit from this transit trade. Even in Murzuk itself the chief merchants are the
Mojabras of the Jalo oasis.
The vast distances required to be traversed between the scattered oases oblige
the Fezzanese to rely mainly on their local resources. The regular commercial
relations established in Mauritania between the inhabitants of the Tell and those
of the oases, the former exchanging their cereals for the wool and dates of the
latter, scarcely exist between the tribes of the Tripolitan oases and the people of
Fezzan. Nevertheless a few palm groves in the Wady Shiati, south of the Black
Mountains, belong to the Arabs of Tripoli, who yearly cross the hills and plateaux
to collect their crop of dates. In general the land is distributed in fair proportion
amongst the inhabitants, each of whom has his plot of ground and palm-grove ;
but they are weighed down with hea\y taxes. Being unable to breed live-stock
owing to the dryness of the climate, and the industries being scarcely sufficient
for the local wants, they have no means of procuring any supplies from abroad.
TOPOGEAPHY. 79
Since the middle of the century they have even grown poorer, the more vigorous
young men having emigrated to Sudan to escape military service. According to
Richardson, the men are considerably less numerous than the women in Fezzan,
scarcely exceeding 11,000 in a total estimated by him at no more than 26,000
adults. In certain villages visited by Duveyrier the able-bodied men had been
reduced to about 12 per cent., foreign rule having here also depopulated the country
and caused a relapse into barbarism.
Topography.
In the "Wady Shiati, the most important oasis of North Fezzan, there are two
places ranking as towns : in the east Brak, residence of the mudir or governor, in
the west Ederi, standing on an eminence and surroimded by fortifications. Jedid,
that is, the " New," in the more southerly oasis of Sebha, despite its name, is at
least three hundred years old. It is also enclosed by walls, and has a population
of about a thousand souls. Like the neighbouring town of Karda, it was formerly
peopled by a branch of the Aulad SKman Arabs, who, however, were driven out
by the Turks and dispersed throughout the surrounding countries, even as far as
Wadai. To the north-east follow the three towns of Teinenhint, Semnu, and Zighen,
in the oasis of like name — the last mentioned, a mere collection of hovels grouped
round a central castle, and exclusively inhabited by Marabuts from the Fogha oasis.
In the Wady Lajal, south-west of Jedid, the largest places are Tekertiha,
JJgra'tfeh, and Uhari. Towards the western extremity of the valley lies the little
village of Neiv Jenna, near the ruins of Oarama, which 2,500 years ago was the
capital of the powerful nation of the Garamantes, who held sway throughout the
Libyan oases as far as the region now known as Marocco. Of Jerma Kadiniy or
" Old Jerma," there still remain the enclosures, 2 J miles in circumference and
flanked by broad earthen towers. Not far from the palm groves of Jerma stands a
well-preserved monument, noteworthy as being the most advanced Roman structure
in the interior of the continent. To this point during the reign of Augustus had
penetrated Cornelius Balbus Gaditanus, conqueror of Garama and Cydamus, or
Ghadames. Hence the special historic interest attaching to this square tomb, which
is in the form of an altar, decorated at its four angles with Corinthian pilasters.
Murziik, present capital of Fezzan, has the advantage of being situated in ,the
centre of the country. Nevertheless, it seems strange that its rulers should have
selected such a malarious place for their residence. In the hot season nearly
all strangers, even the Negroes, are attacked by ague ; and till recently the whites
were allowed to reside in the town only during the three winter months, not through
any solicitude for their health, but from the prevalent idea that their bodies
fomented and rendered more fatal the miasmatic exhalatfbns. In the cemetery to
the east of the town is shown the tomb of the traveller Ritchie. But the choice
made of Murzuk, which lies on the track of the caravans traversing the southern
plateaux in the direction of Sudan, has helped to make it the most populous city
in Fezzan, the number of its inhabitants being estimated by Nachtigal at six thou-
80
NORTH-WEST AFEICA.
Fig. 21. — MUEZTTK.
Scale 1 . 17,000.
sand five hundred, and by Rohlfs even at a still higher figure. Standing at an
altitude variously estimated at from 1,520 to 1,600 feet, Murzuk covers an area of
over a square mile, within an earthen wall, strengthened by bastions and flanked by
towers. Round the enclosure stretches a zone of sand, and salt marshes, beyond
which are the gardens and scattered palm groves. The streets within the walls,
mostly at right angles, are intersected by a broad lendal, or boulevard, running
from north-west to south-east, and dividing the town into halves. At its
north-west end stands the citadel, a massive gloomy building over 80 feet
high, and in the middle of the town regular porticoes give access to the bazaar,
where are heard all the languages in North Africa. The mean annual value
of the exchanges in this mart is estimated at £20,000.
On the route to Rhat, west of
the capital, the oasis of Otha or
Tessa ica, an ancient settlement of
Negroes from Haussa, is the only
district containing any groups of
population. Beyond this point
nothing is met except a few wells,
such as that of Sharaha, near which
Miss Tinne, the "King's daughter,"
as she was called by the natives, was
assassinated in 1869. In the Hofra
district east of Murzuk Hes the
decayed town of Traghen, in the
oasis of like name. For centuries
this place was the capital of Fezzan,
and residence of a Negro dynasty,
whose sepulchral mounds are still
shown near the town. But as the
population decreased, the magnifi-
cent palm groves of Traghen deve-
loped into a vast forest, the produce
of which is now little used except for the fabrication of lakbi, and a liquor prepared
frbm the fermented juice of the sap. The most copious spring in all Fezzan wells
up near the crumbling walls of Traghen ; but this source of Ganderma became
ob.structed during a civil war, and now oozes into a marshy depression.
Ziiila and Temma, the former occupied by Shorfa, or reputed descendants of
Mohammed, the latter by Berbers who still speak the national idiom, are both
situated in the " Eastern " oasis. Like Traghen, Zuila was also at one time capital
of Fezzan, and the whole region is still known to the Tibbus by this name. In
another oasis near the southern frontier lies the " holy " city of Gatron, held by
learned Marabuts, who monopolise the trade with the Tibesti uplands, and who claim
to have come from Marocco three or four centuries ago. But their mixed descent is
sufficiently betrayed by their Negroid features, and even now they seek their wives
14° lO' E . of bree
,">.% Yards.
TOPOGEAPHY.
81
ckiefly among the natives of Tibesti. Gatron lies in a hattiya, or swampy depres-
sion, surrounded on all sides by dunes and cliffs. Its vast palm forest is said to
yield the best dates in Fezzan, and the baskets made by the native women are
exported to all the surrounding districts.
Gatron lies at the northern extremity of a chain of oases which stretches as far
as Tejerri, the last inhabited place in Fezzan, on the verge of the desert. Here
also are seen the last date-palms, and the first dum-palms in the direction of the
Sahara. Rohlfs was unable to determine the slope of the wady, which is perhaps
nothing more than a depression in an old lacustrine basin.
South of Tejerri, where the Negro element already greatly exceeds that of the
Fezzanese people, nothing farther is met on the caravan route to Sudan except the
Bir Meshru well, which has been frequently choked by the sand. Round it are shown
the skeletons of men and animals still clothed with their sun-dried flesh. Groan-
ing under the lash, worn out by the march across the arid plateaux, burnt by the
torrid and dusty atmosphere of the desert, the gangs of slaves trail their chains
with difficulty to the brink of the well. Here they often fall prostrate for the last
time, and are left by the caravans to perish of hunger in the scorching rays of the
sun.
CHAPTER VI.
GHADAMES.
LTHOUGH included within the political and administrative frontiers
of the Turkish possessions, the group of oases of which Ghadames is
the centre forms a distinct geographical region, differing in its
ethnology, history, usages and commercial relations from Tripolitana
properly so called. While the latter forms part of the Mediter-
ranean seaboard, the Ghadames district lies within the area of drainage of the
desert, in a basin whose waters never reach the great inland sea. The intermittent
stream which rises north-west of the Red Hamada, and which imder diverse names
reaches the Ghadames oasis, after a course of about 150 miles, has no longer any
perceptible channel in the region of dunes stretching beyond that point to the
Tgharghar basin. The other parallel wadies descending farther north from the
southern gorges of the Jebel Nefusa also nm dry in the same zone of sands, leaving
nothing to indicate their course at a period when they were still running waters.
It is probable, however, that all converged in a vast fluvial basin, tributary of the
great southern sebkhas of Tunisia.
In this region of the Sahara slope, Ghadames is far from being the only, or even
the most important oasis, as regards either the abundance of its waters, or the extent
of its palm groves. But its special importance is due neither to its agricultural
resources nor to the local industries, but to the commercial enterprise of its inhabi-
tants, who have long been the chief agents in furthering the exchanges between
the Mediterranean seaports and the markets of Sudan. From time immemorial
Ghadames, the Cydamus of the Romans, has been the starting-point for caravans
traversing the sea of sands in the direction of Lake Tsad and the river Niger.
This commercial pre-eminence of a small oasis endowed with no exceptional advan-
tages, must be attributed to its position precisely at the converging point of the
Cabes and Tripoli route, on the very verge of the desert, between two inhospitable
and almost inaccessible regions — to the west the shifting sands, to the east the
rocky terraces of the Red Hamada. The advanced station, forming a sort of pass
penetrating far into the desert, has become the necessary head-quarters of caravans
bound for the Tuareg territory, the Twat and Wed-Draa oases. Thanks to the
intermediate station of Rhat on the route to Sudan, it has also been able to com-
pete with Sokna and the towns of Fezzan for the trade with Central Africa.
PHYSICAL FEATUEES.
83
Since the French conquest of Algeria, most of the trans- Saharian traffic, in
order to avoid the territory of the Rumi, has been deflected from its natural channel
to the Ghadames route, lying scarcely 15 miles from the conventional frontier
between the French and Turkish possessions. Further political changes, and espe-
cially the development of the railway system, must necessarily involve a still greater
displacement of the old commercial highways.
Ghadames lies only 300 miles from Tripoli, and to the nearest point on the
coast towards the common frontier of Tripolitana and Tunisia the distance scarcely
exceeds 240 miles, a journey for an ordinary caravan of ten or twelve days.
Throughout nearly the whole of its extent, this much-frequented trade route is
moreover easily traversed, and little exposed to the raids of the Urghamma
Fig. 22. — Ghadames Disteiot.
Scale 1 : 2,450,000.
30 Miles.
marauders on the Tunisian border. Hence Ghadames has been frequently visited
by European explorers since the time of Laing, who first reached this place in 1826.
Richardson, Dickson, and Bonnemain followed each other towards the middle of
the century ; Duveyrier resided here in 1860, and two years later a French mission
under Mircher studied its geographical features and commercial relations. During
his journey to Central Sudan in 1865, Rohlfsmade a detour to visit Ghadames, and
since then Largeau and several other French explorers have traversed the neigh-
bouring frontier to survey the oasis, which the French annexation of Tunis has
brought into still closer relation with the European world.
Physical Features.
The sandy plain of gypsum where Ghadames stands at an altitude of 1,170 feet
according to Duveyrier, or of 1,300 according to Vatonne, would present a most
84 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
forbidding aspect, but for the green fringe of palms partly concealing the town,
and pleasantly contrasting with the surrounding yellow plain, furrowed here and
there with grey or reddish strips. The powdery soil, in which the camel sinks at
every step, is strewn with blocks of sulphate of lime, occasionally forming poly-
hedric groups, which are interspersed with gypsum and quartzose sand in nearly
equal proportions. In the midst of the plain stand the so-called gurs or kefs,
isolated eminences 130 to 160 feet high, and terminating in a table of white chalk,
the remains of an upper layer which formerly covered the whole district, but
which has been gradually eroded by the ceaseless action of outward and subter-
ranean physical agents. It is easy to detect the work of destruction still going on.
The superimposed strata of sandstone, carbonate of lime, gypsima, marl, or clay,
resist in different degrees the influence of heat and cold, which oscillate between
such great extremes in these solitudes ; hence follow irregular movements of
expansion and contraction, producing faults in the strata. Water also infiltrating
through the porous soil expands and disintegrates certain rocks, the upward
pressure causing fractures in the surface layers.
Throughout the whole of the Ghadames plateau this action is evident. The
ground is covered with small cones upheaved by the thrust of underlying forma-
tions ; between these irregular eminences rising in fantastic disorder above the
normal level are still visible the uniformly superimposed strata ; the rocks present
the most varied aspects, from the solid and compact strata to one of the most
complete disintegration. Certain hills still preserving their upper table have been
fissured on one side", like burst flour-bags discharging through the rent a stream of
sand from the inner rocks, which have been gradually triturated by the alternating
temperature. Thus the plateau, at first cut up into isolated eminences, is being
transformed into a system of dunes, some of which remain for ages disposed round
a more solid central core, whilst in others the rock becomes completely ground to
dust, drifting under the action of the winds and merging in the lines of dunes,
whose long undulations cover certain parts of the desert. The rocks which best
resist these weathering influences are the ferruginous sandstone deposits ; hence in
many places the surface, already denuded of the limestone and gypsum formations,
is still covered with hard and blackish sandstone masses, which yield a metallic
sound under the wayfarer's footsteps.
The Ghadaracs oasis is encircled by an earthen rampart 3^ miles in circum-
ference, formerly raised against the marauding tribes of the desert, but now
possessing no defensive value. Broken here and there by broad gaps at some
points, especially on the west side, it serves to accumulate the sands, which are thence
blown by the winds into the streets and gardens. The town, comprising several
quarters, lies in the south-west part of the oasis, where have been sunk the wells on
which the inhabitants depend for their supply of water. The chief spring fills a
vast basin of Roman construction. Usually known as the fountain in a superlative
sense (ain in Arabic, and tit in Berber), it is more specially named the Ain-el-Fers,
the " Mare's Spring," or, in the local Temahaq dialect, the Arsh-Shuf, or " Croco-
dile's Spring." Its slightly thermal water (8-5° to 86° F., or about 17° higher
PHYSICAL FEATUEES.
85
than the mean temperature of the oasis) comes from a natural reservoir lying
probably at a depth of 465 feet below the surface ; and although containing about
twenty grains of salt to the pint, it has no disagreeable taste when allowed to get
cold. Multitudes of leeches swarm amid the surrounding aquatic plants.
Besides this spring and the other artesian wells, seven or eight ordinary wells
some 65 feet deep yield a liquid with a temperature of not more than 65° F., but so
charged with salt as to be undrinkable. With every economy, the water from all
Fig. 23. — The Ghadames Oasis.
Scale 1 : 16,000.
50'
6'
50
50
•5'
-*ot
Camping ground
. Cemetery
8° 13' 10-
L ^ oT vjre
50'
.8°14'
.- Gate
■ Tower
W Gate and tower
Wells
Waterless wells
Springs, wells of hot water
^— 550 Yards.
sources scarcely suflfices to irrigate some hundred and eighty-five acres, in which
are crowded sixty-three thousand palms, and where are also cultivated various
fruit-trees and vegetables, all of poor quality except the melons and pistachios.
Formerly the whole space of four himdred acres comprised within the ramparts
was under cultivation ; but during the course of centuries the water supply has
fallen off, or else the natives have relaxed their efforts, wearied with the incessant
struggle to preserve their lands from the ever-encroaching sands.
In few other districts is the land more subdivided than in the Ghadames oasis.
86 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
where every head of a family has his separate plot, be it only a single palm, or the
F
'A
'W'
1!;; I
ll'lilkllll
lliiliii
t
M
h
tit'^
^!:
T-- W
m
%'ii
mm ■
\ } ll vj
^*'
'.. '(
y^.'' '
'^k *
^
ground on which it grows ; hence all land capable of being irrigated commands a
price far higher than its productive value.
TOPOGRAPHY. 87
Topography.
The town of Ghadames presents the same constructive features as Siwah, and
the ancient Berber cities reaching as far as Nubia. The streets are vaulted passages,
admitting the light only at rare intervals through apertures in the walls of the
houses. These passages are used by the men and female slaves alone ; but so dense
is the gloom that to prevent collision a warning voice or sound is needed, the men
stamping on the ground, the women uttering a sort of plaintive murmur. The
better classes never go abroad without a lantern. The houses, either of stone or
adobe, consist mostly of a ground floor, serving as a store, and of one story com-
prising a central apartment encircled by smaller rooms. The general disposition
is the same as in the Moorish houses, only instead of being open to the air the
dwellings are lit through a hole in the flat roof. All the terraces, although
enclosed by low parapets, communicate with each other, so that the women, for
whom this space is exclusively reserved, are able to walk from one end of the
quarter to the other ; real streets are even laid down along the houses above the
tunnels, set apart for the men and slaves. On the terraces a special market is
daily held for the barter of jewellery and textiles, but inaccessible to the men.
Grown-up children pass the night abroad, boys in the gardens, on the seats of the
cross-roads or in imoccupied houses, girls with some female friend or relation whose
husband is from home.
The natives of Ghadames are fundamentally of Berber stock, and the current
speech closely resembles that of the Tuaregs and of the Siwah, Aujila and Jofra
oases. Nevertheless the race is very mixed, both features and complexion betray-
ing strains of Arab and Negro blood. The people, who, like the Tuaregs, go abroad
either wholly or partly veiled, have regular features ; but they lack the strength
and lithe figures of their Algerian neighbours. Most of them are of a lymphatic
or nervous temperament, and the stranger is surprised to meet so many with glossy
skin, flaccid flesh, lustreless eyes, thick lips, feeble voice. Yet the women are
distinguished by really noble features, and a graceful form enhanced by a charming
costume.
As in most Berber towns, and in the mediaeval cities of Italy, the population is
divided into hostile factions, whose rivalries appear to spring, to a very slight
degree, from racial difPerences. The Beni-Wasit, themselves subdivided into four
shueras or secondary groups, hold the southern and eastern parts of the town ; the
Beni-Ulid, or Tescu, with two shueras, the north and north-west, the latter devoted
mainly to trade, the former chiefly householders and agriculturists. Before the
Turkish occupation, both factions often engaged in mortal combat, and although
now dwelling peaceably together, such is the force of tradition that they still
remain confined to their respective quarters, never exchanging visits or inter-
marrying. They meet only on the market-place, or outside the ramparts in the
convents of the religious brotherhoods. But many natives of Ghadames will
recognise each other as fellow-countrymen only in such remote places as Tripoli,
Kano, Timbuktu, visited by them during their trading expeditions.
88 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
Besides the ci^'ilised Berbers, the popidation of Ghadames also comprises
members of the neighbouring Arab tribes : Suafas, or immigrants from the
Algerian Suf, Negroes from West Sudan, and even Fullahs from the Upper Niger.
The descendants of the black slaves constitute a separate group, that of the Atriya,
who commonly speak the Haussa dialect, but do not enjoy fiill civic rights. A
branch of the Azjar Tuaregs encamp in large numbers on a plateau near the south-
west side of the town, of which they are the most faithful allies. But for their
co-operation all trade relations between Ghadames and the Tsad and Niger basins
would be suspended, and in some respects the inhabitants consider themselves
members of the Tuareg confederacy. A Targin chief reduced to want is supported
at their expense ; and every Targin, whether free or slave, receives hospitality
during the time of his residence in the town.
But the prevailing influence amid all these diverse elements is Arab culture,
although the Arabs themselves are far from nimierous in Ghadames. The traders,
all polyglots, and sufficiently instructed to read and write, use Arabic in their
correspondence, and their Berber dialect itself is largely afPected by words and
expressions drawn from the Koran. No traces have survived of the old Berber
alphabet, although there is a local system of nimieration by fives, by means of
which commercial transactions with distant towns can be kept secret.
The produce of the surrounding gardens would scarcely suffice for the require-
ments of the seven thousand residents in Ghadames for a single month ; nor do
the few local industries contribute much to the wealth of the people, who depend
for their support chiefly on trade. Thanks to their relations with most of the
markets in West Africa, they had acquired a certain affluence when the Turkish
Government began to hamper their relations vriih vexatious regulations. Like
Murzuk and the other intermediate marts between Tripoli and Sudan, Ghadames
has lost much of its prosperity since the restrictions imposed on the slave trade
and on the direct traffic with Algeria and Tunis. The native dealers, who have to
pay the Turkish Government a yearly impost of £10,000, enjoy a high reputation
for probity ; their word is always enough, even in the case of transactions involving
a credit of several years. When a caravan loses any camels along the trade routes
kept open by the friendly Ajar tribe, the loads are left on the spot sometimes for
over a year, without any danger of being carried off by casual waj'farers.
Owing to the imwarlike character of the people, their caravans, like those of
the ancient Carthaginians, are always escorted by mercenaries. At the time of
Largeau's second visit in 1878, a guard of ten invalided Turkish soldiers sufficed
to enforce respect for the authority of the Sublime Porte. On their trading
expeditions meeting people of all beliefs — Mohammedans of diverse sects. Christians,
Jews, and Pagans — the Ghadamesians have in general acquired a broad spirit of
tolerance, although still strict observers of the Melekite rites. Jews, however, are
not suffered to settle in the place, probably owing to professional jealousy. No
branch of the widespread Seniisi confraternity was established in the oasis till the
year 187G. Polygamy is rarely practised in Ghadames itself, although the traders
have taken wives in the various cities where they have to reside for any length of
TOPOGRAPHY. 89
time. Amongst tlie peculiar marriage ceremonies, is the imposition of absolute
silence on the bride for the first seven days of the union.
The only local antiquities are the already described Roman reservoir, a bas-
relief said to betray Egyptian influences, a few columns and hewn blocks, besides
a ruined tower with an inscription in Greek and unknown characters, " perhaps in
the Garamantine language," but in any case a precious monument of the com-
mercial relations established at least two thousand years ago between Cydamus and
the Hellenic world. Outside the walls Duveyrier discovered a Homan inscription
dating from the time of Alexander Severus, a monument of great historic import-
ance, showing that Cydamus, at that time attached to the administration of Lam-
bessa, remained at least two hundred and fifty years under Roman rule after its
conquest by Cornelius Balbus in the reign of Augustus.
On the plateau forming the camping- ground of the Azjar Tuaregs stand some
shapeless columns, by the natives called El-Esnamen, or " The Idols." According
to Duveyrier, these pre-Roman ruins are the remains of Garamantian monuments,
perhaps tombs. In the neighbourhood a space of some square miles is covered by
the cemetery of Ghadames, in which the older monuments are always respected,
and amongst these Roman sepulchral inscriptions may yet be discovered. To the
north the isolated dolomitic eminence of Tukut is crowned by the ruins of a town,
whose inhabitants have escaped to Algeria in consequence of a standing feud with
their neighbours.
The Derj oasis, lying over 60 miles due east of Ghadames, in the same area of
drainage, might hope to become the commercial centre of the district, if the local
traffic depended entirely on the abundance of water and vegetation. Derj, or the
" Step," so named because it occupies the first stage on the Red Hamada route, is
surrounded by plantations containing some three hundred thousand palms, and
yielding a far greater supply of dates and other fruits and vegetables than is
needed for the local consumption. Hence the Ghadamesians, who from remote
times have owned more than half of the trees, draw much of their supplies from
Derj.
The inhabitants of the oasis, grouped in four villages, claim some to be Berbers,
others Arabs, but are in fact so mixed by crossings with slaves, that they look
more like Negroes than Semites or Hamites. In every house a state room is
decorated with copper vases representing the price paid for their wives, who pride
themselves in displaying all this glittering treasure.
North-east of Ghadames, on the slope of the plateau facing the desert, lie the
palm groves of the Sinaun oasis, one of the caravan stations on the route between
Ghadames and Tripoli. But this oasis is being gradually devoured by the pitiless
sands, which are invading the plantations and gardens, filling up the ditches, and
encroaching upon the two villages, whose enclosures are already in ruins. A large
number of the inhabitants, the Aulad-Bellil, a noble race proud of their descent,
have already emigrated to Ghadames.
AFRICA I.
CHAPTER VII.
KHAT.
HAT (Ghat), a trading place like Ghadames, also forms a Berber
commuuity, whicli since 1874 has been officiall}' brought under
Turkish rule, so that any European power occupying Tripoli would
doubtless claim this district as an integral part of the conquest.
Lying much farther from the coast than Ghadames, 540 miles in
a straight line from the Tripoli seaboard, it is also separated from the coastlands
by the Red and Tinghert (" Limestone") hamadas and by other plateaux, as well
as by the region of lofty dunes.
But even more than by nature, Rhat was defended from the prying curiosity of
the whites by the fanaticism and commercial jealousy of its inhabitants Ismail
Bu-Derba, the first explorer who visited it in 1858, was chosen for this mission
because of his Arab nationality ; but since then the mysterious land has been
reached by Richardson, Overweg, Barth, Duveyrier, Yon Bary, and Csillagh ; the
two last named here died. In 1869 Miss Tinne was assassinated on the route
thither, and in 1874 Dournaux-Duperre and Joubert met the same fate within one
or two days' march of the En-Azhar wells, between Ghadames and Rhat. In 1881
also the three French missionaries, Richard, Morat, and Pouplard, were murdered
by the Tuaregs and Shaambas, a day's journey south of Ghadames, while attempt-
ing to reach the same place. Duveyrier was compelled to stop within half a mile
of Rhat, the inhabitants having threatened him with death if he attempted to
penetrate into the town. From this distance, however, he contrived to make a
sketch of the place from his own observations, supplemented with data supplied by
some of the natives.
Standing at an approximate altitude of 1,300 feet above the sea, Rhat lies, like
Ghadames, on the slope of the basin formerly watered by the great River Igharghar;
but the valley occupied by it is now choked by sands, and the rare flood-waters are
soon lost amid the northern dunes. Like Ghadames, Rhat also is indebted to its
geographical position for its commercial prosperity. Its narrow valley affords the
most convenient route between the highlands and plateaux, which in this part of
the continent form the waterparting between the Atlantic and Mediterranean
EHAT.
91
basins. Westwards rise the volcanic heights of Tasili, at whose foot winds the
Aghelad, or " Passage," followed by the main caravan route from Rhat to
Ghadames, and continued northwards by the Wadies Titerhsin and Ighargharen,
the latter a tributary of the Igharghar. To the east stands the almost inaccessible
schist and sandstone Akakus range, which in a whole generation has scarcely been
scaled by more than two or three
Fig. 25. — Ehat.
Scale 1 : 715,000.
24"
t }'
M
J^"'
%^,-
E .ofGr
:ch lO°30'
I0°40'
Springs.
12 Miles.
venturesome Tuareg mountaineers.
At its northern extremity this rug-
ged chain is skirted by the path
leading to Fezzan, which through
the arid Tanezzuft valley reaches
the Murzuk plateau by the Rhalle
pass and the stony Taita wastes.
Southwards the Rhat valley rises
gradually in the direction of a hill
about 4,000 feet high, which marks
the northern verge of the Sahara.
Here, amid huge blocks and pillars
of sandstone, and within sight of
granitic domes and pyramids, ends
the long narrow defile, where the
traders have established their chief
depot between Ghadames and the
Sudan. Earth, who has named
this section of the waterparting the
"Adz jar Uplands," identifies them
with the Jebel Tantana of mediaeval
Arab writers.
Rhat stands on a slight eminence
at the north-west foot of a rocky
hill. Within the ramparts it is
almost geometrically divided into
six quarters by streets terminating
at as many gates. The houses are
in the same style, but generally
smaller and less numerous, than
those of Ghadames. Within the
enclosures the population scarcely
exceeds four thousand ; but outside
are a number of villages, and in the
intervening space is held the annual fair, on which the prosperity of the plain
largely dejDcnds. The surrounding plain is here and there dotted over with clumps
of palms and other trees ; but the oasis nowhere presents the continuous stretches
of verdure seen at Ghadames. Yet it would be easy to extend the area of culti-
24'
92 NORTH-WEST AFEICA.
vatiou, abundance of water lying at a slight distance below th3 surface. Artesian
wells sunk at several points j-icld a copious supply for irrigating the surrounding
tracts.
Topography.
According to the local tradition, Rhat is a relatively modern to's^Ti, having been
founded some twelve or fifteen generations ago by the Ihajenen Berbers, jointly
\vith a few neighbouring tribes. Amongst these were the Kel-Rhafsas, in whom
Duveyrier recognises the descendants of those who in Roman times occupied the
town of Rapsa. This military and trading station must doubtless have stood some-
where in the vicinity at the entrance of the defile connecting the two slopes of the
Sahara. But in any case the Ihajenens and other neighbouring Tuaregs have long
been the masters, or at least the protectors, of the district. In the town, however,
the nomads have gradually been replaced by the descendants of traders from other
parts of North Africa. Nevertheless the family is still regarded as belonging to
the old stock, so long as the descent is maintained through the female line ; for the
Ihajenens are Beni-Ummia, or " Children of the Mother," amongst whom rank
and property are transmitted not from father to son, but from uncle to nephew.
Hence at Rhat the Berber law reserves to the women, representing the old rulers
of the land, the administration of the inheritancy. They alone dispose of dwell-
ings, springs, and gardens, in administrative capacity and commercial enterprise
showing themselves in no respects inferior to the men. In some families the
children succeed to the movable and real property ; but the eldest son of the sister
alone can claim the seignorial rights over the serfs, and the traditional dues le^aed
on travellers.
Most of the non-Tuareg inhabitants come from Ghadames and Twat, or else
are of the hartenes class — that is, the children of Negro women abandoned on the
route by their husbands. But all these various ethnical elements, recently increased
by the Turkish garrison troops, are sufficiently subject to the local traditions to
adopt the native Berber dialect. Most of the inhabitants also wear the Tuareg-
costume — pantaloons, blouse, and veil — and still adhere to the old trading tradi-
tions of the place. For centuries the same routes are followed, fixed by custom
and the exigencies of the tribes claiming transit dues in return for their protec-
•tion. Thus in order to reach Timbuktu, the caravans from Rhat have to make an
enormous detour by the Twat oasis. Direct intercourse with the French Algerian
possessions is also interdicted by the Turks and the fanatic Senusiya brotherhood,
which has been very powerful in the oasis since the middle of the century. For
its sujjport the town is thus reduced to the profits of its trade with the distant
Sudaurse markets between the Niger and Lake Tsad. The produce of the local
industries and agriculture is even less important than that of Ghadames. The
surrounding district nourishes scarcely three thousand date-palms, amid which the
Tuaregs have set up their stone or earthen houses, their huts of branches, and skin
tents.
In the oasis the only other centre of population is Al-Barkat {Barakat, Iherke),
GOYERNMENT AND ADMIXISTRATIOX OF TEIPOLITAXA. 93
a small Tuareg village lying some 6 miles farther south. The clean and pleasant
spot, better watered and more fertile than Ehat, presents an agreeable picture to
the traveller, such as he -^-ill not again meet for hundreds of miles along his
southern route. Yet the ruins occurring here and there in the suiTOunding districts
show that these now arid and almost inaccessible uplands were also at one time
inhabited. Even in the Jebel Akakus the natives point to the site of the ancient
city of Tenderart, where are seen the myrtle necessarily introduced by a civilised
people, and sculptures carved on the face of the rock.
A few domestic zebus in the Rhat oasis are all that now survive of a species
formerly abounding in the whole of Tripolitana, at a time when the rains were
more abundant, and the now dried-up wadies veritable rivers.
Xorth of Rhat the isolated crescent-shaped Idenen range raises its jagged crest
between the narrow Aghelad defile and the valley skirting the western foot of the
Akakus highlands. Idenen is known also as Kasr Jenun, or " Castle of the Jins,"
the evil sjDirits for thousands of miles round about being supposed to assemble here
for the concoction of their maleficent spells. Richardson nearly lost his life when
scaling these rugged heights, and Barth failed to reach the summit. "Worn out
by fatigue and devoured with fever, the daring explorer fell at the foot of a tree,
where he remained seven-and-twenty hours before he was discovered by his
attendants. His failure naturally confirmed the dread felt by the natives in
approaching these dangerous mountains. Yet their mean altitude seems to be
little over 2,300 feet, above which rise, 200 or 300 feet higher, sandstone towers
isolated or grouped in frowning citadels.
Government and Administration of Tripolitana.
The portion of Tripolitana annexed to the Turkish empire constitutes a vilayet,
like the other Ottoman provinces in Europe and Asia. The authority of the Sultan
is, therefore, exercised directly, not through a vassal sovereign, as was til] recently
the case in Tunis, and is still in Egypt. The vali, or governor, is usually chosen
among the superior ofiicers of the army, generally ranking as a mushir, or marshal,
and commanding a body of troops which at times scarcely exceed five thousand,
but which are at present estimated at about three times that number. Under this
pasha, who disposes at once of the civil and military authority, are the mutaserifs
and kaimakans, administrators of the secondary pro\ances, while the kazas or
cantons are ruled by mudirs, who have replaced the former kaids. But each
tribe and Arab commune still retains its own headman, who in towns and \allages
takes the title of sheikh- el-beled. Their functions, supposed to be exercised
gratuitously, are in reality the most burdensome to the unfortimate people, for
justice is dispensed, for the most part venally, by the sheikhs. While the revenue
of the vilayet is estimated by the Minister of Finance in Constantinople at from
£120,000 to £160,000, probably ten times that amount is actually raised in the
form of taxes and fines.
In the Berber commimities, where the democratic instinct is much more
94 north-"vst:st afeica.
developed than amongst the Arabs, the general interests are in the hands of the
jenuKi, or assembly, at whose deliberations all take part freely. By it taxes are
imposed, criminal charges heard, fines regulated, and in serious cases sentence of
banishment pronounced. But in important places, such as Ghadames and Rhat,
the local constitutions have been modified to the profit of the Government, which
appoints a mudir, whose almost exclusive mission is to look after the revenue. In
this he is assisted by a mejeles, or council, consisting of a mufti, the sheikh-el-
beled, and four notables chosen by their peers and confirmed by the pasha, on the
recommendation of the mudir. The assembly occupies itself chiefly with com-
mercial matters, while the special communal interests are managed by a jemaa
elected by the inhabitants of the different quarters.
A cadi, or rather a naib, or lieutenant of the cadi of Tripoli, decides all cases
of inheritance, marriage, and divorce. The zaptiehs, or police, armed with staffs,
are responsible for the maintenance of order in the to\^^ls, although they are them-
selves usually con^-icts condemned to exile by the tribunals of Constantinople. At
the same time most of the higher officials in Tripoli and the provinces are banished
to this African region mainly at the pleasure of the Sultun.
In east Tripolitana nearly all the populations are governed by chiefs belonging
to the religious order of the Senusiya. They are the real rulers, administering all
affairs either directly, as in the Kufra oases still independent of Turkish authority,
or through the medium of officials, whose functions are mainly limited to receiving
their share of the local revenues.
In Fezzan the chief functionaries, as well as the garrison officers, are all of
Turkish nationality, the sheikh-el-beled alone excepted, who is always chosen in
the same clan. The ancient royal family, which comprised about two hundred
members, has been completely exterminated.
CHAPTER YIII.
TUNISIA.
ITHIN its present limits, Tunis does not form a geographical unit
distinct from the rest of Mauritania. Its highlands belono- to the
Algerian orographic system, while its chief rivers take their rise
beyond the frontiers^ which are themselves frequently displaced, and
which, since the French occupation, have acquired a purely con-
ventional value. Hence it becomes impossible to study the main phvsical features
of Tunisia apart from the rest of the Atlas regions, of which it forms little more
than a special geographical division. Nevertheless, certain natural limits may be
traced along a line of rugged and almost uninhabited hills ; its historic evolution
also differs in several respects from that of Algeria, while its inhabitants are still
grouped under a distinct political administration.
Taken in its broader sense, and not in its more restricted historic acceptation,
Mauritania forms one of the best defined natural regions in the world. It comprises
the portion of Xorth Africa which embraces the whole of Timisia, Algeria, and
Marocco, and which was designated by the Arabs under the general appellation of
Gharb, or Maghreb, that is, the " West," in a pre-eminent sense, and even Jezirat-
el-Maghreb, or the " Western Island." Belonging, like Spain, the south of France,
and Ital}^ to the Mediterranean zone, it is far more compact than those south
European lands, presenting a surprising simplicity of outline instead of a contour
broken by deep bights, headlands, and peninsulas. Its general form is that of a
regular quadrilateral, limited northwards by the Mediterranean, east and west by
the Gulf of Cabes and the Atlantic, south by another ocean of sands, clays, rocks,
and shingle. This very desert space, or at aU events a great part of it, may itself
have possibly at one time been a marine basin, as Bourguignat has endeavoured to
show, and as has since been asserted by many writers. But this Saharian sea, dry
land at all events since the early Miocene period, has left no fossils to attest its
former existence, and it is now known that the proposed attempts to restore the
inland basin could result in nothing more than a chain of lakes flooding the shotts
standing at a lower level than the Gulf of Cabes.
But however this be, Maghreb still remains, from the geographical standpoint, a
perfectly isolated upland region, connected by no rivers or great natural or arti-
96
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
ficial highways with the fertile and thickly peopled districts of Central Africa. It
must remain a simple dependence of Southern Europe until it becomes attached to
the Senegal and Xiger basins by such routes as modern industry may yet create : in
a word, until the vast obstacle of the intervening desert has been suppressed.
The Atlas Orographic System.
The Atlas Moimtains, which constitute the backbone of Mauritania, and which
wtiuld justify its being called by the name of Atlantis, apparently applied to it
about the dawn of written history, forms a continuous orographic system from the
Atlantic Ocean to the Sicilian waters. But they do not develop themselves in a
Fig. 26. — AXCTZNT FOEil OF MA■CTEITA^^A, ACCOEDING TO BotlEGIHGNAT'S HYPOTHESIS.
Scale 1 : 34,000,000.
40"^
icr-
se-'so
Meridian of 'br-eenwich
l2°20'
600 Miles.
single range, as formerly represented on the maps, for they rise in distinct ridges
^r confused masses, and at many points are replaced by slightly rolling tablelands
The western section, to which the term Atlas is more specially applied, alone con-
stitutes a true Alpine chain, whose highest peaks probably attain an elevation of over
l;>,000 feet. Hence they were described as the loftiest mountains in the world by
the early Phoenician and Greek navigators, who beheld their alternately blue and
snowy crests standing out against the grey or azure background of the firmament.
Herodotus speaks of Mount Atlas as the "Pillar of Heaven," an expression not
unnaturally applied also to Blount Etna and other lofty summits constantly wrapped
in cloud and fog, which to the ancients seemed to represent the true celestial vault.
IJut in reproducing the reports of explorers, legend could scarcely fail to personify
the Atlas, giving to the word a sense different from its primitive meaning. On its
THE ATLAS OROGRAPHIC SYSTE^r. 97
brawny shoulders it now bears the world itself, and sculptors represent it as a giant
straining every muscle beneatb the huge mass of the terrestrial globe. But accord-
ing to most authorities, the term Atlas is simply a softened form of the Berber
word Adrar, or "Mountain." In Marocco the range is still called Idraren, or,
more simply, Deren, the "Mountains," so that for the last two thousand years — that
is, since the time of Strabo — the name has undergone no change, doubtless because
the same Berber populations still dwell at its foot.
Although now separated from Spain by the Strait of Gibraltar, the Atlas belongs
none the less to the same system as the Sierra oS'evada and the other sierras of the
Iberian peninsula. They are certainly loftier, and, with the southern chain of the
anti- Atlas spurs and secondary offshoots, occupy a greater suj)erficial area; but they
consist of the same rocks, disposed in the same order, while their general direction
from west-south-west to east-north-east is maintained almost parallel with the
Spanish ranges. Like these also the Mauritanian highlands are partly interrupter!
by plateaux of great elevation. Thus, east of uMarocco, the line of the Atlas is
continued throughout Algeria and into Timisia by the zone of the great plateaux
at a mean altitude of over 3,300 feet. The Algerian ranges are in fact for the
most part merely border chains skirting the plateaux north and south. The
northern or coast ranges have the greatest mean breadth, about 50 miles, those on
the south being scarcely 30 miles broad, from the edge of the plateaux to the verge
of the Sahara. But, towards the east, on the Tunisian frontier, the two highland
zones converge and develop fresh chains, which continue in the normal direction of
the whole system. Even the extreme peninsula of Dakhla-el-Mahuin, projecting
between the gulfs of Tunis and Hammamat, runs south-west and north-east in the
direction of Sicily.
Between the Marocco frontier and Central Algeria none of the simimits attain
an elevation of 6,600 feet ; but in Jm-jura and the Jebel Aures, west of Algiers, the
highest peaks exceed 7,500 feet. Farther east the hills gradually fall, the loftiest
crests in Timisia rising to a height of not more than 5,000 feet. From one
extremity to the other, the system has a length of no less than 1,400 miles.
Owing to the parallel disposition of the highlands, plateaux, and plains, in the
long Mauritanian quadrilateral, the whole region from the Atlantic to the Gulf of
Cabes is distributed in narrow zones, differing from each other in physical appear-
ance, climate, products, and inhabitants. The fertile coastland valleys support ar^
agricultural population, while the upland steppes are peopled by nomad pastors and
their flocks ; in the southern oases, encroaching on the desert, tillers of the soil
again constitute the bulk of the community. Thus are developed in parallel lines
a number of distinct zones, whose inhabitants differ in their pursuits, character,
traditions, and often even in origin. An interchange of necessary commodities
takes place between the various zones ; but the relations are not always pacific, and
neighbouring tribes often contend for the conterminous territory.
This natural distribution of Mauritania into longitudinal sections, each with its
distinctive ethnical conditions, is certainly one of the chief causes of the political
dismemberment of the land. The littoral zone, stretching from Cape Bon to Cape
98 NORT^-'\^^:ST afeica.
Spartal, was far too long for its slight breadth, and thus became broken into several
frao-ments, analogous to those which destroyed the unity of Italy. But the form
and outlines of countries have a continually decreasing influence on the destiny of
their inhabitants, the work of man tending more and more to reduce the importance
of distances and diminish the contrasts of climate and relief. Tunis is at present
more intimately associated with Tangiers in the extreme west than it formerly was
with the adjacent districts of Bon and Cabes, separated from Goletta Bay by stormy
headlands.
In their hydrographic systems Timisia, Algeria, and Marocco present analogous
conditions. The northern slope of the Atlas, facing the Atlantic and Mediterranean,
is too narrow to develop large fluvial basins. Hence only a small number of
watercourses, rising on the upland steppes, or at least fed by affluents from those
reo-ions, have succeeded in forcing their way through the border ranges seaward,
thus presenting a development analogous to that of the European rivers falling
into the !ilediterranean. Thus the Maluya of Marocco, the Algerian Shelif, and
the Mejerda of Tunis, are exceeded in length only by the Rhone and Ebro.
On the Sahara slope there would certainly be no lack of space for the running
waters to excavate long channels in the direction of the Niger, the Atlantic, or the
Syrtes. But here the rainfall fails, and the streams have no volume corresponding
to the extent of their basins. Except the Draa, which rises on the southern slope
of the Marocco Atlas, but fails to reach the Atlantic opposite the Canary Islands,
there is not a single stream in the Sahara region which flows freely on the surface
from its source to the sea. The beds formerly excavated, when the rainfall was
more abundant, may, however, still be traced in. spite of the shifting dunes, and it
is evident enough that they formed water systems rivalling in extent that of
the Euphrates. One of these old streams, rising in the Atlas, flowed southwards to
the Niger ; another, the mighty Igharghar with its vast system of affluents, formed
in the Jebel Ahuggar and Jebcl Tasili, took a northerly course to the depression
of the Algerian shotts ; but within the present geological period it has had no outlet
to the Gulf of Cabes. Its area of drainage, probably exceeding 320,000 square
miles, is scarcely inferior to that of the Danube.
Ethnical Elements.
Owing to the substantial uniformity of the physical, hydrographic, and climatic
conditions throughout Mauritania, the local flora and fauna must also everywhere
betray a certain resemblance, although in many places the migrations have been
checked by natural obstructions, thus giving rise to many gradual modifications of
species. Between Capes Bon and Nun are met representatives of the same races
of mankind, differing in their distribution according to the endless variety of the
environment and the chequered course of events. Everywhere in Mauritania the
Berber element, of unknown origin, constitutes the fundamental stock, and accord-
ing to Faidherbe still comprises at least three-quarters of the present population,
estimated at about ten millions between the sea and the desert. But although
ETHNICAL ELEMENTS. 99
forming tlie great majority, the Berbers have at all points been driven from the
plains to the uplands. Peaceful tillers of the soil, too sluggish to progress, too
slow to combine together, they have been fain to jdeld to the more warlike Arab
tribes.
The Arabs themselves, forming probably less than a sixth of the Mauritanian
poptilation, are foimd either in settled or nomad communities scattered over the
whole region as far as the Atlantic seaboard. But while more numerous in the
central districts, they diminish gradually from east to west, according as they
recede from the Arabian peninsula.
The blacks, who by intermixture have also tended much to modify the other
ethnical elements, were everj^vhere originally introduced as slaves or mercenaries.
But they are naturally most numerous in those districts which maintain the most
frequent relations with their native land ; hence they prevail chiefly in Marocco,
which enjoys constant commercial intercourse with Western Sudan. Even the
imperial family, although claiming descent from the Prophet, is more Xegro than
Arab.
All the towns throughout Mauritania are largely peopled by " Moors," that
is, an endlessly mixed race, resulting from the fusion of Roman, Yandal, Arab,
Berber, Italian, French, Spanish, and other Mediterranean elements. If the
Moors present a somewhat uniform type from one end of the land to the other,
this is assuredly due, not to racial purity, but to theii' common historic evolution,
to the similar surroundings and pursuits of more or less civilised urban com-
munities. The term " Moor " is, however, one of those vague expressions which
has often been used in different senses. According to Tissot, it originally meant
" Western," while Sabatier thinks it was at first applied to the inhabitants of the
upland districts. Mauritania would thus mean " Highlands," as would appear
from the root maur, mur (Amur), still met with in all parts of the country. But
the Spaniards, and after them European Christians generally, applied the term
Moors, Moor, in a much wider sense to all Mohammedans, and in ordinary language
even to all pagans. At present its use is restricted to the Mohammedans of the
Mauritanian towns, distinguished by their settled life and higher culture from the
Arabs of the rural districts. Relatively speaking, the Moors are most numerous in
Tunisia.
Although numerically inferior to the indigenous element, the intruding Arab
people were long the rulers of Mauritania, and from them the French met with
the most obstinate resistance in the conquest of Algeria. It is noteworthy that
they have spread with a certain uniformity, especially over aU the open plains and
least rugged plateaux — a phenomenon due to the successive migrations pressing the
tribes continually forward, and thus producing at diverse epochs a general dis-
placement from east to west. Even long before the Hejira, Mauritania had already
been invaded by Arab tribes, such as the Luata, or Ruadites, who settled in
Cyrenaica during the first centuries of the new era, and who imder different names
gradually advanced to the eastern districts of Mauritania. Then followed the
period of conquest and conversion, which also left a certain number of Arab tribes
100 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
in the country, and four centuries later the great movement of migration, whence
are descended most of the Arab nomads at present encamped in the Barbary states.
Then the stream of migration was reversed, and many tribes that had reached
the Atlantic retraced their steps eastwards. Throughout Mauritania, Tripolitana,
and the eastern oases, the tribes who show the longest genealogies and claim the
title of Shorfa, or descendants of the Prophet, are precisely those that for a time
sojourned in Marocco before starting on the return journey towards Arabia.
Another reaction was that of the so-called " Arabs," who had overrun the Iberian
peninsula ; but these conquerors were mainly Berbers, who during their long resi-
dence in Spain had become intermingled with Ligurians, Iberians, Kelts, Visigoths,
and other local populations. Most of these fugitives, known in Mauritania as
Andalus (Andalusians), settled in the towns, where they blended with the Moors,
thus adding a new factor to the tangled web of local interminglings.
In a region peopled by such diverse elements, not yet fused in a single nation-
ality, it would be vain to look for a spirit of patriotism such as prevails in longer-
settled and more homogeneous European communities. Amongst Berbers and
Arabs the sentiment of solidarity is restricted to the family or the tribe, so that
the consciousness of forming a single people, with common interests and aspirations,
is entirely absent. As Mohammedans rather than kinsmen, the Mauritanian Arabs
combine against the Christian, who has hitherto always been able to rely on intes-
tine quarrels and tribal feuds to hasten the work of conquest. Nevertheless it
was a slow process, in Algeria especially, because the country remained long
exposed to the incursions of the southern tribes. Even after its reduction, the
seaboard continued to be threatened by the neighbouring highland peoples ; and
when these were subdued, the inhabitants of the plateaux had still to be conquered.
Until the parallel geographic zones were all defended by fortified towns, agri-
cultural settlements, and military outposts, the new conquest, destitute of a solid
southern frontier, presented a thousand weak points to the restless border tribes.
But the situation was different in Tunisia, which being enclosed on two sides
by the sea and on a third by a chain of fortified stations, was limited southwards
by lagoons and the desert. It was, moreover, already traversed east and west by a
line of railway, so that a protracted resistance was nowhere possible, even if the
French invasion had been preceded by a fonnal declaration of war. But on the
•pretext of frontier tribal disturbances in the west, the country was suddenly
invaded east and west by overwhelming forces, all strategical points rapidly seized,
and the capital occupied even before diplomatic relations were interrupted between
the two states. Thus the Bey had no option except to sign a treaty presented at
the point of the bayonet, which practically converted Tunisia into a French province.
The limits of Tunisia being still undetermined towards Tripolitana and Algeria,
its superficial extent can only be approximately estimated. According to the
planimetric calculations of recent geographers, it has a total area of from 46,000 to
47,000 square miles, including the lagoons and sebkhas, which occupy extensive
tracts in the central and southern districts. But the triangulation now in progress
must soon reduce the discrepancies still existing between the extreme estimates.
HISTORIC RETROSPECT. lOi
Although comprising not more than a thirteenth or a fourteenth of the whole
of Mauritania, the relative density of its population gives to this region an
importance ®ut of all proportion with its actual extent. Doubtless the population
itself must remain somewhat doubtful, pending accurate official returns, and recent
estimates have varied as much as from one to two millions ; but since the French
occupation there is a general consensus that one million five hundred thousand is
about the most probable figure. But even accepting the lowest estimate, of one
million, Tunisia would still contain a relatively much larger population than either
Algeria or Marocco.
Historic Retrospect.
Nevertheless, even allowing for the consequences of a capricious Government,
and for the general displacement of political power, it still seems strano-e that a
country so fortunately situated as Tunisia should have so greatly retroo-raded, and
that it should have been almost completely effaced as a factor in the historic
evolution of the Mediterranean lands. Placed at the very centre of the inland
sea, at the eastern extremity of Mauritania over against Sicily, possessino- a lono-
coastline with deeper inlets and better ports than those of Algeria and Marocco,
endowed also with a healthy climate and fertile territory, Tunisia enjoys natural
advantages which formerly enabled it to take a leading part amongst the Mediter-
ranean states. In the interior the relief of the land is no less favourable than its
general outlines. The longitudinal zones, elsewhere sharply defined in Mauritania,
here lose their abrupt contrasts, while the great inlet of the Gulf of Tunis com-
pletely turns the rugged coast range, giving access to the inland plateaux through
the Mejerda and Melleg valleys. On the east coast, also south of the Gulf of
Hammamat, the marine basin penetrates far inland towards the central regions of
Algeria, while the great trade route across the desert has its terminus on the Gulf
of Cabes.
Through these very gulfs and eastern plains, Phoenicians, Romans, Byzantines,
Greeks and Arabs found access to the interior, Asiatic and European influences
thus penetrating beyond the seaboard into the very heart of Mauritania. On the
very shore of the Gulf of Tunis, commanding at once the central channel of the
Mediterranean and the natural approach to the Libyan continent, stood the city of
Carthage, which became the emporium of the Old World, and which long arreste(i
the destinies of Rome. Even after its reduction, the province of " Africa," now a
European settlement, by its commercial, industrial, and intellectual life, caused its
name to be applied to the whole continent.
Again, in mediaeval times, Tunisia had its period of culture and prosperity. To
a near future therefore belongs the duty of restoring it to the place amongst the
nations to which its geographical position naturally entitles it. For the Mediter-
ranean trade it is better situated than Algiers, better even than Naples or Messina ;
while for the communications with the Niger basin the Lesser offers greater advan-
tages than the Greater Syrtis, thanks to its more advanced position and less
dangerous navigation.
102 NORTH-W^ST AFRICA.
Physical Features.
The mean altitude of Tunisia diminishes gradually from west to east, although
the culminating points, ranging from 4,000 to 5,000 feet, are distributed irregularly
over the face of the land. One of the loftiest ridges occupies the north-west
comer of the country towards the Algerian frontier, where it is disposed in the
direction from south-west to north-east. To it may be given the name of "Khumir
range," from the now historical group of tribes, who raise their crops of barley,
maize, and tobacco in its upland glades. South-westwards it is continued through
the scarcely less elevated Ushtetta hills, and by those of the Beni Salah, which are
limited southwards by the rugged gorges traversed by the Upper Mejerda in the
department of Constantino. Most of their slopes are clothed with forests of leafy
trees, and from many of the Iccfa, or summits, nothing is visible to the eye except a
boundless sea of verdure. These hills are furrowed by a labyrinth of steep ravines
and narrow glens watered by streamlets, which flow either south to the Mejerda,
west to the Wed-el-Kebir, or north to the ]\[editerranean cirques. Here lofty
headlands project far seawards, such as Cape JRoux, whose abrupt escarpments and
ruined forts mark the frontier between Tunis and Algeria. Farther west the Jebel
Mermal develops another promontory, opposite Tabarka Island, which still bristles
with Genoese fortifications, and which was formerly connected with the mainland
by a dyke, now replaced by a tongue of sand flush with the water.
East of the Khumir Mountains stretches the less elevated but still hilly district
of Mogod, terminating north-west and north of Bizerta in several capes, such as
the Bas-Dukkara, Ras-el-Kerun, Bas-Engela, Bas-el-Abiod, or " Cape "WTiite."
These northernmost headlands of the African continent advance 20 geographical
miles beyond the thirty-seventh parallel, thus approaching 90 miles nearer to the
Pole than the point of Ceuta, opposite Gibraltar. Here the Tunisian waters are
studded with a few islets and reefs, amongst which are the Fratelli, or " Brothers,"
known to the Romans as the Altars of Neptune. Farther seawards, in a line with
the Sorelle, or " Sisters," the island of Galita, over 1,000 feet high, and consisting
of trachyte rocks analogous to the andesites of Ecuador and the blue porphyries of
Esterel, can scarcely be geologically connected with the neighbouring mainland,
from which it is separated by an abyss 170 fathoms deep. Phny asserts that the
rsoil of Galita kills the scorpion, a fable still repeated in another form by mariners,
who tell us that these volcanic rocks harbour no venomous reptile. The absence of
snakes might serve as an additional proof that the island is not a detached fragment
of the continent, although it has yielded some land shells of the same species as
those foimd on the opposite coast.
South of Mejerda, the region along the Algerian frontier presents no distinct
orographic system. Broken into distinct sections by the Wed Mcllog and its afflu-
ents, the hills here follow the main line of the Atlas from south-west to north-east,
leaving everywhere broad breaches mostly accessible to wheeled traffic. This
region in fact forms the eastern prolongation of the upland steppes separating the
two Algerian border ranges, which slope towards the Mediterranean and the Sahara
PHYSICAL FEATURES. 1U3
respectively. The Tumsian steppes, forming a contmuation of the Aures i lateau,
iliiJillllilliil'llil'llliiiiiiiliiii'M;:^
%
■If^
are dotted with isolated eminences, whose summits terminate in tables representing
the remains of older formations that have been eroded by the action of water.
104
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
Several of these flat-topped precipitous heights have frequently served as a refuge
for whole tribes and their flocks. Such, north-east of Tebessa, is the Kalaa-es-
Senam, or " Castle of Idols," 4,830 feet high, approached by a dangerous path
leading to a village of the Hanensha tribe, the most elevated group of habitations
in Tunis.
Farther east, towards the geographical centre of the country, the plateaux are
laro-e and uniform enouo^h to have received the name of hamada, like the stony
plains of the desert. Here the whole region culminates in the Jebel Berberu
(4,920 feet), the Ras Si Ali-bu-Mussin (5,050), and the Jebel Haluk (4,810). Kes-
sera, the most regular of the hamadas, whose summit consists of an enormous table
Fig. 28. — ILuUDA-EL-KESSEaA.
Scale 1 : 180,000.
.m^-^m.
P*4e
•■5 Miles
10 square miles in extent, contains a small sebkha in one of its depressions, and its
precipitous slopes are almost everywhere densely wooded.
North-east of the central hamadas the uplands develop a regular mountain
range, which comprises the Jebel Jugar and the superb Zaghwan, which during
the Roman epoch gave the name of Zeugitana to the whole of this highland region.
Of all the Tunisian heights, none is more famous than that of Zaghwan, whose blue
pjTamidal crest (4,470 feet) is visible from Tunis. From the Jugar and Zaghwan
hills Carthage drew its supply of water, and these sources are still utilised by the
modem capital. A conspicuous feature of the landscape is also the Jebel Ressas,
or " Lead Mountain," to the south-east of Tunis, from which it is separated by the
intervening valley of the Wed Melian. Another steep mountain, the Bu-Kurnein,
or " Father of the Two Horns," rises immediately above the southern shore of the
Gulf of Tunis, where it is recognised far seawards by its twin peaks resting on a
massive foundation of reddish rocks.
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PHYSICAL FEATUEES.
105
East of these hills the ground falls to a broad depression, through which will
probably soon pass the line of railway intended to connect the shores of the Gulfs
of Tunis and Hammamat. Beyond this point the land again rises in the Dakhelat-
el-Mahuin peninsula to a height of over 1,000 feet. Here the Ras Fortas stands
over against Cape Carthage on the opposite side of the GuK of Tunis, while at the
extremity of the peninsula the various spurs of the Ras Addar (Cape Bon) com-
mand the eastern entrance of the great gulf. Its western approach, some 40
miles distant, is indicated by the Ras-el-Khair, more generally known as the Ras
Sidi Ali-el-Makki, whose form, like that of the rock of Gibraltar, resembles a
crouching lion. The western headland, formerly consecrated to Apollo, and the
Fig. 29. — The Jbbel Zaghwan.
.j^ /•:rA,
eastern, on which stood an altar of Mercury, are both fringed with islets and reefs,
and the former is continued seawards by the island of El-Kamala (Plane). Near
it is the islet of Pilau, so named because its form resembles the dish of rice (pilau)
commonly served at Eastern meals.
West of the Ras Addar rise the two islands of Zembra and Zembretta (Siinbolo
and Simboletto), Jamur-el-Kebir and Jamur-es-Sebir, the iEgimures of the
ancients, both inhabited, and in Zembra attaining an elevation of over 1,320 feet.
About 24 miles due east of this coast is the better-known volcanic island of
Pantellaria, which however depends politically on Italy, and apparently belongs to
the European geological system.
AFRICA I. i
103 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
South of the central Tunisian plateaux the uplands diminish in height, and are
interrupted by broad valleys, and limited eastwards by extensive plains, where
have been collected the brackish waters of the sebkhas. But beyond these
depressions the Sahel, or " seaboard," which advances in a semicircle seawards
between the Gulfs of Hammamat and Cabes, merges in a rugged plateau which is
terminated by vast plains and sharp headlands.
"West of the sebkhas, southern Tunis preserves its hilly aspect, mountains here
following continuously as far as the great depression of the shotts which forms the
natural boundary between Mauritania and the Sahara. Nearly all these ridges are
disposed normally from south-west to north-east, in the same direction as the section
of the coast of the Lesser Syrtis lying between Cabes and Sfakes. Here rises the
remarkable Jcbel-bu-Hednia, commanding the saline waters of the Manzuna or
En-Xuail sebkha, north-west of the Gulf of Cabes. Its peaks, over 4,300 feet high,
rise majestically above a broad region of arid steppes, and in its gorges are still
visible the galleries of the old Roman mines, where auriferous ore has been discovered
by J^uchs.
Farther west, in the neighbourhood of Gafsa, stands the Jebel Arbet, from whose
summit (3,660 feet) a panoramic view is afPorded of the surrovmding plains, high-
lands, seas, oases, and sandy wastes. These uplands are limited southwards by an
abrupt ravine, through which will run the future railway from Constantino to
Cabes. But beyond this gorge the plateau again develops a series of terraces
gradually falling towards the Faraun sebkha.
South of the low-ljdng region of the sebkhas are seen a few hills, the advanced
spurs of the range which is continued south-eastwards through the Metmata and
Urghamma highlands in the direction of the Jebels Nefuza and Yefren belonging
to the Tripolitan system. From the summit of the narrow Urghamma crests are
at once visible the Mediterranean and the great desert. They are separated by
steppelands from the dunes and rocky heights of the seaboard.
IIVDROORAPHIC SySTEM.
The Tunisian hydrographic system is readily explained by the relief of the
land. Along the " ironbound coast " stretching from Cape Roux to the Ras-el-
Abiod there is no space for anything beyond small torrents descending from the
neighbouring hills ; but farther east, notwithstanding the slight local rainfall,
rivers of considerable size have been developed, thanks to the broad depressions
here occurring between the ranges and on the plateaux of Mauritania.
Notwithstanding its Wed-el-Kebir, or "Great River," better known under the
name of the Wed Ahmor, the northern slope of Tunisia does not boast of a single
stream exceeding 60 miles in length. The most copious is the Wed-cl-Tin, which
discharges into the Eshkol or Eskel basin, whose level and salinity vary greatly
according to the abundance of the rainfall and evaporation. It has a mean depth
of from 2 to 6 or 7 feet, and the reefs abounding in the fossil canliain edulc show
that it was at one time a salt or brackish reservoir, probably a marine inlet
HYDROGEAPHIC SYSTEM.
107
separated from the Mediterranean by a local upheaval of the coast. During the
floods the Eskel has an area of over 80 square miles, and its emissary, the Wed-et-
Tinja, or " River of the Lagoon," sends down a large volume to feed the neigh-
bouring Tinja Benzert basin. This is the Lake of Bizerta, which communicates
through a long channel with the sea. Covering an extent of about 60 square
Fig. 30. — Lakes of Eskel and Bizekta, 1886.
Scale 1 : 350,000.
■,miJ^ia' ^jgai:
1, . of breenwich 9°40
Depths.
0to32
Feet.
32 to 80
Feet.
80 to 160
Feet.
6 Miles.
160 Feet and
upwards.
miles, it has a far greater depth than the Eskel, even near the banks vary-
ing from 10' to 16, and in the middle from 40 to 50 feet. Since the French
occupation, the channel has been deepened, and the lake now forms a spa-
cious harbour, easily accessible to the largest vessel?. While the water of Lake
Eskel is nearly fresh during the rainy season, that of Bizerta is scarcely less
108
NOETH-T\^ST AFRICA.
saline than that of the sea, and the fishes here captured in large quantities all
belonw to the marine fauna. The alternating current of its emissary, setting now
towards the sea, now towards the lake, as already noticed by Pliny, is due to the
changes of level caused by the rains, marine currents, and winds. After the heavy
rains the channel is converted into a river discharging its overflow seawards ; but
when the evaporation exceeds the volume contributed by its affluents, the deficiency
is supplied by the marine floods. The outflow usually coincides with the east
winds, the inflow with those from the west.
The mouth of the Mejerda, the chief river in Tunis, is separated from Lake
Fig. 31. — Gorges of the Middle Mejeeda.
Scale 1 : 280,000.
9°25'
■.i Miles.
Bizerta only by the range of hills terminating on the coast at the sharp headland
of Sidi Ali-el-^Iekki. The Mejerda, the Bagrada of the Romans and Makarath
of the Carthaginians, rises in the same Algerian uplands that send northwards the
waters of the Seybus. Following in all its thousand windings the normal direction
of the Tunisian coast, it plunges south of the Suk-Ahras plateau into a meandering
gorge, now traversed by a railway, and by a road which crosses the torrent no less
than twenty-seven times. At Ghardimau, within the Tunisian frontier, after
receiving the contributions of numerous torrents, it enters an old lacustrine basin
enclosed some 12 miles farther down by the projecting bluffs of two mountain
ranges advancing in opposite directions. Through this gorge the river has
HYDEOGRAPHIC SYSTEM.
109
excavated a deep channel to the Dakhla plain, an old lacustrine basin at least 300
square miles in extent, which has been filled in by alluvia of the Mejerda, Melleg,
and other affluents. To a height of 70 feet above the present level of the plain,
traces occur of the sedimentary deposits formed before the emissary from the
Fig. 32. — Old Beds of the Lowek Mejerda.
Scale 1 : 450,000.
Depths
0to32
Feet.
32 to SO
Feet.
60 to 160
Feet.
- 36 Miles.
160 Feet and
upwards.
lake had cut through the rocky sill above the upper bed, which dammed up the
lacustrine waters.
In the Dakhla plain the Mejerda is joined by its largest tributary, the Melleg,
which is at least 60 miles longer than the main stream. Rising near Tebessa, in
Algeria, it flows mainly north-west and south-east,- but loses much of its volume by
110 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
evaporation, -Thence the brackish character of its waters. The course of the two
streams across the plain does not appear to have been perceptibly modified within
the historic period, for the old Roman highway runs directly through this alluvial
basin, at intervals touching the windings along the left bank.
At the confluence of the Beja descending from the north, the Mejerda enters
the series of narrow tortuous gorges by which it has forced its way through the
surrounding chalk formation. But at the junction of the Zerga it encountered
harder rocks, which it was unable to pierce. Hence it is here abruptly deflected
southwards to its confluence with the Siliana, where it finds an easier outlet
towards the north-east. Below the barrage constructed in 1622 by Dutch engi-
neers the Mejerda flows by the west foot of the Jebel Ahmor to the alluvial plain
through which it discharges into the shallow El-Bahira (Ghar-el-Melah) lagoon.
This basin, which in the seventeenth century was " the finest harbour in Barbarj^"
and which still communicates with the sea through a small channel accessible to
fishing-smacks, has been gradually filled in by the alluvia of the Mejerda. Its
depth, which now nowhere exceeds 5 or 6 feet, appears to have been diminished
by 30 feet during the last hundred j-ears. It will probably disappear altogether
before the end of the century, just as the older Gulf of Utica in the same delta has
been converted during the last one thousand six hundred years into the marshy
depression of Mabtuha. The Er-Ruan sebkha and other lagoons in this district are
also being slowly effaced, while the shore line between Cape Sidi Ali-el-Mekki and
the hills of Carthage is continually advancing seawards. According to Tissot, the
land has here encroached on the sea to a probable extent of 100 square miles in the
course of the last two thousand one hundred years.
During the historic period the Mejeixla has often shifted its bed, and by the
aid of the old writers and a careful survey of its lower course, it might be possible
to reconstruct the map of its delta at different epochs. In the time of the
Carthaginians, the Makarath or Bagrada. skirted the north foot of the Jebel Ahmor,
leaving on the left a ridge of insular rocks from 100 to 150 feet high, and reaching
the sea at a point just north of Cape Carthage. The old bed can still be traced by
the sands and gravel, in which now grow a few oleander bushes. Subsequently
two other beds were excavated farther north, both of which had also their origin
in the gorge at the north foot of the Jebel Ahmor. But the present channel runs
due north along the depression of the old Lake of Utica, terminating just south of
the headland at the northern extremity of the Gulf of Tunis.
South of the Mejerda there are no permanent rivers, their mouths being closed
by a bank of sand for at least several months in the year. But communication with
the sea is effected by one lagoon, the Lake of Tunis, a second Bahira, similar to
that into which the Mejerda falls; it is somewhat larger, however, and attains a
greater depth, being some 6 feet in the deepest parts. Its approach is formed by
an artificial canal, which has replaced a natural channel farther south, and which
will admit vessels drawing over 4 feet of water ; but its waters are rendered
impure by the sewage of Tunis, and hence the banks are unhealthy. Like those
of the Mejerda delta, this lake, \\hich was formerly crowded by the Roman and
HYDROGRAPHIC SYSTEM. Ill
Carthaginian vessels, is losing in volume, and is bordered throughout its circumfer-
ill
g
.60
ence by hollows, left by the receding waters, which have become swamps or sandy
beaches. The Wed Melian, a term which probably conveys the sense of "Full
112 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
River," a name it no longer merits, is not a tributary of the Bahira ; it descends
from the Zaghwan mountains, and its volume, increased by the water at present
collected by the aqueduct of Tunis, flows southwards roimd a low eminence which
bounds the lacustrine depression.
The Tunisian Serkhas.
On the eastern shore of Tunis, the coast is skirted by numerous sebkhas, which
are separated from the Mediterranean by strips of sand. But at some distance
inland, depressions are also found into which fall several rivulets, whose waters
quickly run dry in their saline clay beds. Such are the sebkhas which follow in
succession west, south-west, and south of Susa, and which are alternately vast
sheets of water and saline plains. During winter time Kairwan has often been
completely cut off from the rest of Tunis by these quagmires. At the very com-
mencement of the rainy season a large portion of the country is transformed into a
veritable slough, leaving no other route available to the caravans except the ridges
running between the hollows. The most extensive lagoon is the Sidi-el-Hani
sebkha, or Lake of Kairwan, whose surface at the period of the floods is at least
200 square miles in extent, and whose central depression, in rainy years, always
retains a little water. It is completely cut off from the coastlands by the Sahel
hills, whilst Lake Kelbia, not so extensive but always filled with water and even
bearing boats, occasionally discharges its surplus waters into the lowlands over a
ledge some 60 feet high. When the rainfall is very abundant — that is to say, on
an average every eight years — the emissary called the Wed Menfes attains a coast-
land lagoon, the sebkha of Jeriba, which is connected with the sea by the Halk-el-
Mengel. Travelling at this part of the coast is rendered dangerous on account of
the looseness of the soil, and till recently, before the construction of the causeway,
not a winter passed without the caravans losing some of their men or animals.
According to MM. de Campou and Rouire, Lake Kelbia, whose surface varies
from 20,000 to 32,000 acres according to the season, forms the basin of a fluvial
system as vast and even more important than that of the Mejerda. The Wed
Bagla, which flows into this basin together with its tributaries the Wed Fekka,
the Marguelil, and other rivers flowing from the heights of Central Tunis, appears
on the maps recently drawn up to have a far less extensive area of drainage than
the northern rivers. In several essays M. Rouire has also attempted to prove the
identity of the Bagla with the river Triton of the ancient writers. But how is it
possible to identify with certainty a river which, according to Pliny, forms the
source of the Nile, and one of whose branches is lost in the Niger ? And the lake
of the same name which M. Rouire identifies with Lake Kelbia, may in fact have
been that mysterious basin which different writers have sought in various places
along the southern shores of the Mediterranean, Strabo placing it at Berenice, to
the west of the Great Syrtis, whilst Diodorus seeks it in the vicinity of the
" ocean which surrounds the world." It would assuredly be a hopeless task to
endeavour to reconcile all the assertions that ancient writers have made about the
THE TUNISIAN SEBKHAS. 118
river and Lake Triton, more especially as not one of their statements harmonises
with the present conditions. All the proposed identifications are contradicted by
one or another passage of these authors, and beyond doubt numerous changes have
taken place in the physical geography of the country, effacing many a topo-
graphical detail now vainly sought by the commentators. It suffices to say that,
although unacceptable on other heads, M. Rouire's hypothesis concerning the
identity of the Wed Bagla with the river Triton, is at least so far in accordance
with the writings of Ptolemy, that this watercourse really rises in the ravines
of Mount TJssalet, the Ussaleton of the Alexandrine geographers. Moreover
throughout the whole eastern shore of Tunis, the Bagla is the only wed which,
rising at some distance inland, flows on in a perceptible bed, if not as far as the
Lesser Syrtis, at least, according to M. Rouire, as far as " a little Syrtis," to which
it brings a small quantity of water. Lake Kelbia, on the other hand, is, in circum-
ference, almost exactly the thousand stadia (111 miles) which Scylax assigned to
Lake Triton. At the same time, the extent of this lake would seem to be much
too great, if the statement of Herodotus is true, that the Libyan virgias, after
having engaged in a combat in honour of Athene, " bore the most vaKant round
the marsh." The prolonged cry which the women uttered at the feasts of the
goddess is synonymous with the zagrit, tuluil, or yu-yu, which the Libyan women
of all the modern Berber tribes give vent to, tapping their lips to give effect to
the sound, on such occasions as feasts, weddings, funeral processions, and warlike
expeditions.
To the north-west of Sfakes, another depression contains the saline lake called
Mta-el-Grrarra ; and farther south, near the regular curve described by the Gulf
of Cabes, there is still another depression, filled with water or a saline efflorescence,
called the Manzuna, or Sebkha-en-Nua'il. But these survivals of former lakes are
a mere nothing in comparison with the partially inundated plain which forms the
natural boundary between the " Isle of Maghreb " and the Sahara. For over a
space of 240 miles from east to west, a succession of sheets of water, saline basins,
marshes, and hollows filled with clay, stretch south of Tunis and Eastern Algeria.
It is probable in some part of this depression, so remarkable in all respects, that
most ancient geographers located the sacred waters near which Minerva and
Bacchus were born.
Shaw, towards the end of the eighteenth century, was the first to put forward
the hypothesis that Lake Triton was identical with one of the Timisian sebkhas.
As a zone separating two natural regions, two faunas, and two races, and from
a hydrographical point of view appealing to the imagination both by its vast
size and by its divers phenomena, this region ought to prove of much greater
interest to geographers than the little lake on the eastern coast, north of the islands.
The vast basin of the Igharghar, whose waters formerly flowed into the chain of
"Tritonic" lakes, presents a surface of at least 320,000 miles, forty times superior
to that of the Tunisian weds which run into Lake Kelbia. This basin, however,
has been completely separated from the Mediterranean for a period long antecedent
to all historic records.
114
NOETH-TN^ST AFEICA.
Judo-ino- from the fossil shells, the marine inlet or the fluvial bed between the
Iklediterranean and the lacustrine basin of the Sahara, was definitely closed about the
postpliocene period. Nevertheless, the riverain peoples of the shott, struck by the
aspect of dried-up inlets presented by these basins, persistently maintained that
communication formeily existed between the sea and the sebkhas, but that Alex-
ander the " two horned " closed the outlet by his enchantments.
Before the geographical exploration of the country, the Isthmus of Cabes,
between the sebkhas and the sea, was merely considered as one of those sandy
Fig. 34.— Sill of Cabes.
Scale : 1,500,000.
54'
L ■ of Greenw'cK 0'4Q
Oto 16
Feet.
Depths.
16 to 32
32 Feet and
upwards.
12 Miles.
beaches such as are found on every shore before the mouths of rivers whose current,
even when aided by the ebb and flow of the tides, is not sufiiciently strong to clear
a passage seawards.
It was supposed that sandhills had gradually raised the bar, which had itself
probably been elevated above the sea -level by the effect of some inland disturbance.
M. Fuchs, by measuring the height of the sill with a barometer, at last discovered
the true state of the case.
From a mean elevation of 330 feet, the little chain of hills revealed two
breaches from 190 to 200 feet high, whose geological formation he ascertained to
THE TUNISIAN SEBKHAS.
115
consist of eocene sandstone and chalk. The Italian expedition under Antinori,
which visited the shores of the Gulf of Cabes in 1875, also found that the sill was
partially composed of rocky layers, and not merely of sand heaped up by the winds.
The lowest point found by the expedition on the waterparting between the streams
which run to the sea and those which flow westwards towards the sebkha, is over
170 feet above the sea-level. Since then, Roudaire, a French officer, has carefully
prepared a detailed map of the whole region comprised between the Gulf of Cabes
and the Algerian " shotts," and has definitely cleared up all uncertainties. The
bar of Cabes still offers at its lowest elevation a height of over 150 feet ; the
sebkhas, which it separates from the Mediterranean, are themselves situated at a
height of from 50 to 80 feet above the sea-level, and terminate westwards at
another ridge more than 300 feet high. Beyond this point begin the depressions
lying below the level of the Mediterranean. The total breadth of land required
Fig. 35. — Zone of the Shotts South of East Algeeia Airo Tunis.
Scale 1 : 3,000,000.
>'-^a Wed
'-'^hott e/, ■ Djer/af
L . of ureenwich
Region below the level of the sea.
»___^^^__^^^_^__ 60 Miles.
to be excavated in order to connect the basin of the " shotts " with the Mediter-
ranean M'ould be over 100 miles.
The whole system of shotts and wadies — or, retaining the Arabic form, shtuts
and widans — which may be called the " Tritonic " system, according to the hypo-
theses of most archaeologists, was at one time probably a fluvial basin commencing
at the source of the Igharghar. But this hydrographic system has long been
broken up. The river bed is in many places blocked by dunes, and the secondary
depressions have been separated from it by ridges of upheaved rocks. That of the
east especially, the largest of all, is bounded by hilly ridges which effect a junction
with the southern Tunisian chains. From the ridge of Cabes to that of Kriz
follow in succession north of the basin a series of abrupt cliffs, called the " Lips
(Esh-Sherb), as if the plain of the ancient lake was compared to an immense mouth.
The sebkha, known at its east end by the name of Shott-el-Fejej, at first is narrow,
but gradually broadens out westwards ; then, beyond a promontory on the southern
116
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
bank, a long rock continued by dunes, the basin, here called Shott Faraun, suddenlj'
becomes three times larger, and forms the Shott-el-Jerid, or " the Shott of the
Palms."
At its western extremity this huge lacustrine plain is called by various
other names. It is no less than 120 miles long from east to west, with a breadth,
from north to south, at the widest part, of 45 miles. The riverain people say that
water remains permanently only in the central part of the Shott-el-Jerid ; but this
water is not visible, being hidden by a saline crust, which suggested to the Arab
r.uthors its comparisons to a silver leaf, a crystal sheet, a bed of camphor. On it
the footsteps re-echo as on the stones of an archway.
Besides the deep waters of the lake properly so called, which is concealed under
its saline covering, the lowest parts of the lacustrine depression are usually filled
Fig. 36. — Tracks of Teavelleks in the Shott-el-Jeetd.
Scale 1 : 650.000.
34
::-::;:^^ijS;v;:;#-;;;<i:V^
8*i0'
L I of Greenwich
Q'aO-
Track.
12 Miles.
with water, at tmies of sujfficient depth to reach the girths of horses crossing the
sebkha, and which under the influence of the wind is displaced from side to side
of the depression. When the water is driven on to the saline crust over the hidden
springs, it becomes partially dissolved, and the level of the waters of the shott
thus often becomes changed. It occasionally happens that the crust of salt is
forced upwards by the pressure of the water, or of the inflated gases, into the shape
of a cone, just as if a subaqueous volcano had sprung into existence. Thus are
formed islands which, thanks to the mirage, when seen from afar appear like
veritable hills, and, indeed, are so called by the riverain peoples.
One of the largest of these islands, called Jebel-el-Melah, or " Mountain of Salt,"
is scarcely twenty paces in diameter and rises no more than about 3 feet above
THE TUNISIAN SEBKHAS, 117
the level of the sebkha. In the middle of this flat space is an ancient well, now-
filled up, which has procured for the islet the further title of Bir-en-Nsof, or " the
Central Wells." Numerous springs rise in the hard tracts of land found in many
parts of the sebkha, but the water they yield is as brackish as that of the fountains
in the surrounding oases. Four islets lying near the southern bank of the Shott
Faraun, are collectively termed Nkhal Faraun, or " Pharaoh's Palms," thanks to a
legendary report of the passage of an Egyptian army through this lacustrine basin,
which the local traditions confound more or less with the Red Sea. The palms
foimd on these four islets are said to have been planted by Pharaoh himself, in place
of the olive-trees which previously covered the now inundated plain. These palms
belong to none of the varieties known in the Jerid, and the dates they yield never
attain a complete state of maturity.
The great Tunisian sebkha is crossed by numerous caravan routes, which
connect the oases on both sides of the basin, Tissot enumerates nine of these
routes, but there are others not so well known, more especially in the eastern
portion of the basin, which is hence called Shott-el-Fejej, or " the Routes," on
account of the roads which traverse it. Some of these tracks are perfectly free
from danger, whilst others must be crossed with the utmost caution, owing to the
fissures, in which the wayfarer might suddenly disappear. On commencing the
transit, the guide always admonishes the travellers to follow carefully in his
footsteps, so as to avoid this danger. The sebkha of Tunis is much more inclined
than the Runn of British India, presenting a slope of from 30 to 36 feet from east
to west, whilst it is also much more perilous to traverse. A cloud of dust, or a
mirage which hides or distorts the landmarks, a mistake on the part of the guide,
or a stampede of the pack animals, might hurl the caravan into the midst of certain
death. By certain traditional agreements amongst the tribes, the course to be
followed should be indicated by stones on one side and trunks of palm-trees on
the other, a space of a few hundi'ed yards intervening between these landmarks.
This arrangement, however, is not observed with sufficient attention ; most of the
gmairs, or guiding marks, are no longer in their proper place, or else have been
replaced by the remains of camels. The sides of the road connecting the oasis of
Kriz with those of the southern promontory, are bordered by abysses filled with a
greenish- coloured water, " more bitter than that of the ocean," and of such a vast
depth that the bottom has never been reached by the sounding lines. According
to the ancient Arab stories and traditions, the earth has often given way under the
weight of the caravans, and the men acid animals composing it have been swallowed
up by these abysses, whose mouth has immediately closed over the heads of its
victims. South of the lake, in the neighbouring region of Nefzawa, in which
numerous hot springs take their source, there is another natural well of unknown
depth, which is called by the Berber name of Tawerga, and of which the tribes in
the vicinity say, that it demands an annual sacrifice of a human being. According
to a local tradition, several centuries ago the site of this abyss was displaced by a
violent earthquake.
North-west of the great Tunisian sebkha, the cliffs of the "Lips" are continued
118 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
by an irregular escarpment, which at one point forms a hill some 570 feet high,
before losiu"- itself in the sands in almost imperceptible undulations. This chain,
whose depressions contain the pleasant oases of Jerid, forms a barrier separating
the Shott-el-Jerid from the Sbott Gharsa, a basin similar to the eastern sebkha,
but of much less extent. The Shott Gharsa, shaped like a crescent with its convex
side facing northwards, is much lower than the Shott-el-Jerid. It lies entirely
below the level of the sea, and if ever a canal should be opened to establish com-
munications between this depression and the Mediterranean, its banks would be
imder water for some 6 miles beyond the present water-mark. The western
extremity of the Shott Gharsa penetrates into Algerian territory and stretches on
like a huge arm of the sea in front of a labyrinth of much more extensive shotts,
known collectively as Melghigh (Melri'ir). The two basins are separated from
each other by low-lying ridges and intermediary depressions. According to the
project with which the name of Roudaires is connected, it was the Shott Melghigh
which, together with all the adjacent land, was destined to form to the south of
Algeria that "inland sea " which, in the imagination of its projectors, was one day
to revolutionise the climate of the neighbouring countries, to attract moisture-bear-
ing clouds to the Aures Mountains, to increase the amount of rainfall, to fill
permanently the, at present, dried-up beds of the watercourses, and to bring forth
from the soil springs which had long ceased to exist. But although it may be
difficult to imagine the formation of a navigable course leading from the ridges of
Cabes to the oases of the Algerian desert, it may at least be understood how useful
it would be to restore the ancient route which skirted the southern face of the
island of Maghreb, between the Lesser Syrtis and the valley of the Draa.
Like those of the eastern coast of Tunis, properly so called, the weds of the
Tunisian Sahara are almost always without water. The most important in volume,
if not in the length of their course, are the Wed Akarit, Wed Melah, and Wed
Cabes. The Wed Cabes is hardly 6 miles long, although at high water coasting
vessels can sail up it as far as the oasis of the town. The hypothesis has been put
forward that the shallow current of the Akarit or Cabes is identical with the
" river Triton " of the ancients ; nor is this supposition altogether improbable,
especially as the Libj'ans, as is proved by the legendary hydrography of Africa,
readily believe in the existence of subterranean rivers in the region of the sands.
Besides, it is an indisputable fact that the basin which receives the Akarit and
Cabes is of considerable extent above the springs where the water wells up very
copiously. Ilcnce it may be questioned whether some fissure in the rock may not
alford an outlet, through the streams fiowing to the Mediterranean, to the deep
waters concealed beneath the saline crust of the Shott-el-Fejej.
The Tunisian Co.\st and Islands.
Although the mountains which continue the Tripolitan " Jebel" approach the
coast in southern Tunis, sufficient space has still been left for the formation of
sebkhas, amongst others the Sebkha-el-^r(l;ih, or "Salt Lagoon," the Bu-Gucrara,
THE TUNISIAN COAST AND ISLANDS. 119
and the Bahiret-el-Biban, or " Lake of the Gates." This latter coastland swamp,
perfectly similar in formation to those found in Languedoc, is separated from the
sea by a narrow strip of land known as " The Dog*s Nose." In the narrowest
portion of this strip of land are two inlets, one of which is so deep that horses are
obliged to swim through it.
An islet at this point of the coast, lying between the two channels, is occupied by
the fortress of Biban, or " the Gates," so called on account of the marine passages
which it protects, and also because it guards the approach to Tunis from the
Tripolitan frontier.
This portion of the coast seems to have been greatly modified within historic
times. Edrisi places at about a mile from the beach of the Biban fortress an
island called Ziru, which is no longer in existence, unless, as many writers believe,
it has become merged in the strip of land between the sea and the lake. But in
this case it would have changed its shape, and the sea would have gradually eaten
it away, for in the time of Edrisi, in the twelfth century, it was covered with
villages surrounded by vines and palm groves. Forty miles long by half a mile
broad, this island must in any case have been a sandy tongue of land which has
effected a junction with the coast. The site of this vanished land is probabl}^
marked by the reefs and sandbank of Zera. At this point a piece of land still
stood high and dry in the sixteenth century, and here was assembled the fleet of
the Duke of Medina-Coelis, when on an expedition against Jerba island in the
year 1560.
The islands of Southern Timis are not of independent origin, like the volcanic
cliff of Pantellaria, off Cape Bon, but are merely fragments detached from the
neighbouring coast by the erosive action of the water or by the subsidence of the
land. The Kerkennah islands, the Cercina and Ce'rcinitis of Strabo, which form
off Sfakes the northern limit of the Syrtis Minor, or Gulf of Cabes, present the
appearance of a mass of soil incessantly eroded by the waves. It is even very
probable that the archipelago of the two islands and the adjacent reefs has been
gradually diminished within historic times. Scylax speaks of but one island, of
which the two present islands are probably no more than a mere fragment ; and the
measurements which Pliny and Herodotus assign to Cercina (Cyraunis) and
Cercinitis are no longer correct. They have diminished, and the northern portion
has been partially demolished by the waves, although the strait which separates
the two islands has scarcely changed for the last two thousand years. There are
still to be seen the ruins of a causeway, some 4,000 feet long, which connected the
two banks, and which might be easily rebuilt.
At the southern extremity of the Gulf of Cabes, the large island of Jerba, the
Meninx of the ancients, which tradition points out as " the land of the Lotophagi,"
has apparently better preserved the shape it had at the beginning of historical
times. However, it is scarcely separated from the mainland, from which it can be
easily reached by fording the intervening channel. The island terminates south-
wards in two points towards which are directed two promontories from the
mainland, and on both sides the coast has been eroded between these capes in such
120
NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
a manner as to form a kind of lake, very similar in appearance to two neio-hbourino-
lakes, the Sebkha-el-Melah and the Bahiret-el-Biban. According to "Wood, this
marine lake is the river Triton, so long sought for on the neighbouring coasts.
The western branch of the strait, some 8,330 feet broad, and commanded by lofty
hills and cliffs, is the only one which is navigable for shipping, the passage
excavated by the action of the tides being from 10 to 50 feet deep. The eastern
branch, although broader, is partly obstructed by islets, reefs, sandbanks, and at
Fig. 37. — Island of Jeeba.
Scale 1 : 110,000.
I0°40
t ^ oT bi^eeow^cW
otoie
Feet.
Depths.
16 to 32
Feet.
32 Feet and
upwards.
3 3Iiles.
ebb there remains scarcely 2 feet of water in the deepest parts. The ford followed
by the caravans, which bears the name of Trik-esh- Jemel, or " Road of the Camels,"
winds to the west of a Roman bridge spoken of by ancient travellers, and of which
some remains arc still to be seen. Two castles, the Borj-el-Kantara, or " Castle of
the Bridge," on the shore of the island, and the Borj-el-Bab, or " Castle of the
Gate," in the very centre of the strait, recall the ancient viaduct, worthy of being
compared to the works of modern engineers, if not for boldness of design, at least
THE SYRTBS. . 121
for its great length. Another insular castle protects the Camel Road. According
to the statement of an ancient traveller, the eastern channel of the strait was
navigable during the Carthaginian period. Viewed from a distance, Jerba Island
seems to continue the mainland into the sea in the shape of a long flat point
covered with palms and skirted with strong castles, formerly raised against the
Spaniards or the Knights of Malta. The highest elevations of the land, towards
the centre of the island, are but a few feet above sea-level. No rivulets wind
through the plains of Jerba, and the natives have no other water than that of their
wells. Nevertheless the whole island is densely wooded, and the olive here attains,
a size unknown even in the Sahel.
The Syrtes.
The Gulf of Cabes, which extends in a semicircular shape between the Ker-
kennah group and the island of the Lotophagi, was as much dreaded by the
ancients as the Greater Syrtis itself. As long as the Carthaginians monopolised the
trade carried on along the shores of the Lesser Syrtis, they were careful to describe
the navigation of these coasts as highly dangerous, so as to scare away sailors of
other nations ; and those foreigners who were the first to venture into these
unknown regions might well have supposed at first that the jealous Carthaginians
had not deceived them, when they were surprised by the treacherous tides which
distinguish the Lesser Syrtis from all the other seas of the Mediterranean basin.
The first Roman fleet which penetrated into this gulf, more than one hundred and
twenty centuries ago, ran aground in the shallows at low water, and when floated
by the incoming tide, the sailors had already lightened the vessels by heaving the
provisions and merchandise overboard, and being thus deprived of their supplies,
they were compelled at once to return to Sicily.
Opposite the mouth of the Wed Cabes, at the extreme end of the Syrtis Minor,
the water alternately rises and falls over 6 feet, while on the shores of Jerba Island
the average swell of the tide is not less than 10 feet. In the port of Sfakes, at the
other extremity of the gulf, the average rise of the tide is nearly 5 feet, but at
the period of the equinoxes the difference between ebb and flow is a Kttle over
8 feet. The phenomenon of such considerable tides at this spot is accounted for by
the funnel-like shape of the guK and by the gradual slope of its bed. The liquid
volume coming from the open sea collects in the Syrtis Minor much more readily
than in the almost landlocked seas, such as the Adriatic, or in more open bays, such
as the Syrtis Major. But the tides of Cabes being now thoroughly understood, are
divested of their terrors, and vessels of small tonnage visit these shores without
encountering any of the dangers which were formerly so greatly dreaded. Armed
with sounding lines, the coasting vessels which cross the gulf sail cautiously along,
the sailors standing by the anchor, ready to lot go the moment the lead indicates
that there is not a sufiiciency of water under the keel. And even in case of ship-
wreck, there is very little danger to be run, the sea for a distance of 6 miles out
being so low that the crew could easily make to shore. The waves on this coast
never attain a very great height. On the vast banks of soft mud which surround
AFRICA I. ]^
122 NORTH-\N'EST AFRICA.
the Kerkennah Islands, the surface of the water calms down, let the winds rage
ever so furiously on the open sea ; hence in these still waters vessels can find a
sure haven of refuge, even in the roughest weather. The Syrtis Minor is known
to Italian sailors as the mare morto, or Dead Sea, in contrast to the deep waters of
the mare vivo, or open sea.
The great changes which have taken place in the contour of the islands and
continental coastline of Tunis have, by some travellers, been attributed to local
oscillations. Like those of Tripoli, the beaches of Jerba and Kerkennah are said
to have sunk and consequently diminished in extent. Grenville Temple endeavours
to prove that within the historical period the Kuriatein Islands still formed a
portion of the coast between Monastir and Cape Dimas. On the other hand,
according to Roudaire and the geologists attached to his expedition, the plateau of
Cabes was produced by some internal disturbance, which at the same time upheaved
the Shott-el-Jerid above the level of the sea, and changed its slope from facing
eastwards to westwards. The coast of Tunis does undoubtedly show in many
places above the sea-level traces of ancient beaches that may still be easily recog-
nised. Thus, throughout the plateau of Cabes and along all the windings of the
coastline as far as Sfakes, as well as on the other side of the headlands on the Susa
coast, Fuchs discovered, in 1874, a sandy beach, now lying at a imiform height of
from 40 to 50 feet above the sea, although it contains organisms which are still
existing in the Mediterranean.
But although the existence of these elevated beaches is a sufl&cient proof that a
change has taken place in the relative heights of the land and sea, it in no way
shows that the subterranean impulse is still active, as many travellers believe
themselves justified in stating. The silting up of the ports of Malidiya, Carthage,
Utica, and Porto- Farina is quoted as a proof of the upheaval of the coast, whereas,
in all these instances, the change maybe accounted for by the depositing of marine
sands or of alluvia brought down by the rivers. Besides, we must not lose sight
of the fact that a port which afforded access to the galleys of the ancients, thanks
to their slight draught of about 4 feet, would now be inaccessible to an ordinary
vessel, even were it not choked by sand. Nowhere along the Tunisian coast has
there been found any inland building showing traces of having at any time been
washed by the waves. On the other hand, several islets and reefs mentioned by
the Greek, Roman, and Arab geographers still remain almost flush with the water,
as in former times. The ports of Carthage, which Beule has had cleared of sand
down to the sea-level, have been found precisely at the same level at which they
stood some two thousand ^'cars ago.
Climate of Trxis.
The situation of Tunisia, at the eastern angle of the island of Maghreb, between
the two basins of the Mediterranean, and at one of the approaches to the Sahara,
gives two special characteristics to the climate of this country. "Washed by the sea
on the east and south-east as well as on the north and north-west, Tunis naturally
CLDklATE OF TUNIS. 123
enjoys a much more equable climate than Algeria. Being, moreover, destitute of
lofty mountains or extensive plateaux, whilst its upland regions terminate in
wide valleys well exposed to the sea breeze, the temperature far inland is much
milder than that of the central regions of the Maghreb. As yet no exact meteoro-
logical observations have been made for the inland regions of Tunis. Neverthe-
less, from the natu^ of the vegetation it is easy to determine the general charac-
teristics of the climate, and observe the contrasts that it presents with that of the
conterminous regions. Thus it is that the east winds, which are hot and dry in
the Algerian portion of the Sahara, carry a certain quantity of moisture into
the Tunisian part of this desert, and noui-ish plants which are never found in the
western solitudes. Although on the average higher than that of Algeria, the
temperature of Timis is at the same time moister and less variable.
Nevertheless, the northern and coastland regions are more exposed to the
scorching southern winds than the Algerian Tell, and it occasionally happens
that, under the fiery breath of the simoom, the thermometer rises to 113° and even to
118° F. in the streets of Tunis. On the other hand, the atmospheric currents which
in winter bring down the cold air from the Apennines, have occasionally produced
weather as cold as any experienced in Southern Europe. Ferrini states that in the
month of February, 1854, snow fell in Tunis for the space of one whole day.
The seasons in Tunis succeed each other with extreme regularity. The
winter, which coincides with the rainy season, and which bears the same name of
esh-shta, usually commences in January and lasts not quite two months. This is
followed by the "green" or spring season, which is also very short, whilst the
summer lasts six months, from May to October. The autumn is ushered in by
the normal return of the rains, although showers are common throughout the
whole year ; on an average the Tunisians calculate that rain falls on 90 days out
of the 365. The winds usually blow from off the sea, i.e. from the north-east to the
north-west. The north-east current, which is the normal polar wind, usually
prevails during the summer months ; whilst the north-west wind, a continuation of
the beneficent " mistral," predominates for the rest of the year. These sea breezes
are the most salubrious, and are those which are accompanied by rain ; but they
are not so regular as the trade winds, and are often subject to sudden changes.
At the period of the equinoxes, violent atmospherical disturbances often arise;
towards the middle of September the GuK of Tunis is almost always thrown into
a commotion by a violent gust, which the Christians of the first centuries called
"the Cyprian wind," because it generally appeared on the anniversary of the
death of Cyprian, bishop of Carthage. The full fury of the winds is usually most
to be dreaded around Cape Bon ; several aerial currents meet at this angle of the
continent and struggle furiously for the supremacy. Hence the name of " Bon "
or " good," which the Carthaginians gave this promontory, with the intention of
flattering the genius of the cape, and thus securing his goodwill. The Arabs
often call it Ras Ghaddar, or " the Treacherous Promontory," instead of Ras
Addar, or " the Good Cape." The marine currents also meet at the base of this
cape, and form as violent a disturbance below as the winds cause above. So power-
124
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
ful and so lashed by tlie winds are the currents of water running from the western
waters into the sea of the Syrtes, that vessels sailing westwards would be unable to
cross it were it not for the south-east winds, which usually blow off the Syrtes
towards Malta, and thus assist them to double this dreaded headland. When the
Fig. 38.— Cape Box axd ZEiCBRA Island.
Scale 1 ■ 340,000.
% A ■^:=;^:i^"%
■y ':■-'■ M
,,ll/,
1 MenzelTleiTiin
E . of Greenwich I0°50
II' 10'
Deptlis.
Oto 80
Feet.
80 to 160
Feet.
'm
160 to 320
Feet.
"20 Feet and
upwards.
i; Miles.
sky is unobscured by clouds, a view can occasionally be obtained from this promon-
tory of the coast of Sicily, and the horizon has often been seen illumined by a ruddy
light caused by the eruptions of Mount Etna.
It is somewhat remarkable that on the coast of Tunis tempests are rarely
FLOEA OF TUNIS. 125
accompanied by lightning. Thunder is scarcely ever heard, except on the moun-
tains, and Ferrini assures us that there is not a single instance on record of its
having been met with in the plains. At Tunis and in the suburbs it has been
thought unnecessary to protect the buildings by lightning conductors. AtSfakes,
however, the case is quite otherwise, and M. Guerin states that a tower in this town
was several times struck by lightning in 1882.
Taken altogether, the climate of Tunis is one of the finest throughout the whole
Mediterranean coastline. The military statistics between the months of August,
1883, and March, 1884, show that fewer soldiers were received into the Tunisian-
hospitals during that period than in any of the Algerian provinces, or even than
in France itself. M. Bertholon considers that the coast of Tunis can boast of as
fine a climate as Australia, but that in the inland valleys, where the atmosphere is
not renewed by the north winds, endemic fevers are justly dreaded.
Floka of Tunis.
Belonging to the Mediterranean zone by the nature of its geological formations,
rocks, and cHmate, Tunis is also comprised in the same geographical area, thanks to
its flora and fauna. Like Algeria, the Iberian coast, Lower Languedoc, and Lower
Provence, Italy, and Greece, Tunis forms a part of the olive region, which Colu-
mella considers to be "■ the first of all trees." The investigations of botanists show
that the Flora of Tunis is almost identical in its special characteristics with that of
Algeria ; still, the differences in the relief of the land and the climate have resulted
in a far greater intermingling of species in the eastern than in the western region.
In Algeria the boundary lines are clearly defined between the flora of the coast
and of the uplands of the plateaux, and of the Sahara, whereas in Tunis they inter-
mingle in the utmost disorder. The species common to the Sahara, following the
coastline along the Gulfs of Cabes and Hammamat, finally reach the maritime
dunes close to Tunis and Bizerta. Wherever sand is to be found, the botanist is
sure to observe ten or twelve varieties which he has seen in the Saharian ergs.
Conspicuous amongst these is the drin, or arthmterum jmngens. On the other hand,
there are found south of the Shott-el-Jerid, in the same latitude as the southern-
most oasis of the Algerian Suf, some plants belonging to the upland plateaux of
Setif.
Cabes seems to form the meeting-point of the most diverse floras, comprising
varieties from the sea- shore, from the sandhills of the desert, from the clayey beds
of the weds and their alluvia, from the argilo-calcareous plain, which skirts the
foot of the mountains, and from those oases characterised by a Mediterranean and
almost a European flora. Thanks to its position opposite Sicily, Tunis also pos-
sesses a certain number of species common to Sicily and Italy, which are nowhere
found in Algeria.
Cape Bon, the boundary of the eastern and western basins of the Mediterranean,
also forms a barrier between two regions whose respective floras present some
points of difference in detail. The entire flora of Tunis, which Desfontaincs in
126 NORTH- WEST AFEICA.
the last centmy calculated at 300 species, consists, according to M. Cosson, of
1,780 varieties, of wliich a few only are indigenous. From west to east, i.e. from
Tunis to Marocco, the special varieties of plants gradually diminish, a fact due to
the gradual lowering of the land. Amongst the 563 species found at Cahes,
there are only 25 which are not to be met with in the Algerian Sahara, Some of
these plants are so numerous that they impart their colour to the plains, which
hence are visible for a distance of several miles. Large tracts covered with bind-
weed, and other pale blue flowers, appear in the distance like extensive lacustrine
basins.
The mountains of the Mejerda basin, and those which command the Mediter-
ranean watershed between Bizerta and Calle, are still covered with vast forests.
Thanks to the relative moisture of the climate, here are fomid huge oaks, amongst
others the zeen [quercus Mirheckii), whilst the holly flourishes in the midst of the
brushwood, and the wiH cherry amongst the fruit-trees. If the Mejerda has
plenty of water throughout the year, it is due to the woods wliich clothe its sides.
But in central Tunis, and in the \'icinity of the Syrtes waters, the country is almost
entirely deforested. The only trees to be found in this region are the olive and
the fig, which grow round the towns, overtopping the hedges of nopal, as in Algeria,
the plateaux having no other varieties than the wormwood and alfa grass, which
is used to manufacture paper. In some spots the ground is completely naked, and
has even lost its superficial humus, the hard rock ringing with a metallic soimd
under the foot of the traveller. However, in these barren regions, at the southern
base of the Bu-Hedma mountains, there lies a forest of gum-bearing acacias, which
covers a space of some 18 miles long by 7 broad. This is the most northern region
of Africa in which is met one species of these gum-bearing trees, viz., the acacia
sayal. But they scarcely amount in round numbers to 40,000, the trees being so
far distant from each other. They are occasionally used in the preparation of food,
but the gum is allowed to run waste, and serves as food to wild animals. The
gum which exudes from certain varieties of mastics, as in the island of Ohio, is not
employed in the manufacture of mastic or other perfumed essences.
The banks of the great shotts, which are separated from the SjTtis Minor only
by a narrow isthmus, are covered with the beautiful " groves," as the natives call
them, of the Beled-el-Jerid, or " Country of Dates," which contain over a million
piihns, belonging to more than 150 varieties. The dates vary in taste in a most
astonishing manner, according to the climatic conditions. Whilst the palms at
Sfakes and Jerba island are little more than ornamental trees, whose fruit is mostly
given as food to the animals, those at Cabes produce excellent dates ; the fruit
yielded by the El-IIamma oasis is excellent, while that obtained in Jerid and Suf
is even still better. The cause of this is doubtless due not so much to the difference
of temperature, as to the different proportion of the atmospheric moisture.
Amongst all the varieties of dates, a great difference in taste is noticeable according
to where they are grown. In the Jerid the finest is the deglet-nur or " luminous
date," so called on accoimt of its transparent appearance ; the Suf, however, can
show dates which arc preferable to it. The inhabitants of the oases love thoir
FAUNA OF TUNIS. 127
trees as if they were domestic friends. They never " kill," i.e., cut down, a palm
for the purpose of making lakbi, the caryptis of the ancients, except on very im-
portant occasions, such as the birth of a child, a marriage feast, or on the arrival
of a greatly respected guest.
Formerly Jerba, the ancient Meninx, the " Island of the Lotus-eaters," was
famous for the lotus plant, which is not known with certaintj' to have ever since
been found in this region. What was this fruit, of such an exquisite taste that
when travellers had eaten of it they forgot their native land ? Does this Homeric
legend refer to some mysterious product sjnnbolical of peace and happiness ? or else*
does it apply to a veritable fruit which seemed so attractive to the Greek mariners ?
The descriptions given by the ancient writers seem more especially to indicate a
variety of the jujube-tree (zizi/phiis lotus), the seder or sidra, which is still found in
Jerba Island, as well as on the neighbouring coast, and as far inland as the Tuareg
country. Its berries are made into a very pleasant acidulated drink, although the fruit
itself, of an insipid sweetish taste, is no longer much appreciated. Mohammed speaks
of the zizj^hus lotus as an accursed shrub, which in the Saba country has taken the
place of the delicious fruit-trees which formerly flourished in the gardens of that
region. The first Greek explorers, who related to their coimtrymen the wonders
of the distant lands they had A'isited, may possibly have tasted the fine dates of
Beled-el-Jerid, without having seen the tree, and hence they would have attributed
this fruit to the jujube-tree; or else the taste of the fruit may have been modified,
of which Egypt presents an example in the fruit of the sycamore. El-Beki-i relates
that the apple-trees of Jerba were unrivalled for the excellent and beautiful fruit
they bore ; but its plantations were destroyed because the Christians used to take the
apples without paying the islanders for them.
Fauna of Tunis.
The fauna of Tunis, like its flora, differs from that of Algeria and Tripoli in but
few varieties, being somewhat richer in animal forms than the neighbouiing desert
lands which skirt the Syrtis Major, and not quite so rich as Western Mauritania.
A gradual increase in the number of species takes place in the direction from east
to west. But in Tunis, as in the conterminous regions, the fauna has been con-
siderably modified by the great changes which have taken place in historical times.
The destruction of the forests has caused certain species of animals to disappear, or
else has reduced the extent of the zone inhabited by them. On the other hand,
domestic animals have been imported, and also probably wild animals, such as deer,
for according to the ancient writers, these animals were not to be found in this
region before the arrival of the Carthaginians, who introduced and kept them in a
half domesticated state to offer them up as sacrifices to Baal-Hammon. At present a
few deer are to be seen in the western uplands of Tunisia, notably south of Tabarka,
in the Khumir and Ushtetta hills.
The bear, which is believed to have been very common, judging from the
numerous geographical terms in which its name occurs, appears to have become
128 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
extinct about the beginning of this century. The baboon is no longer to be met
with, except in that angle of Tunisia bordering on the southern shotts. Lions still
exist in some of the hills on the frontier of Algeria, and more especially in
Khumiria, amongst the Ushtetta tribes, and in the JebelBu-Ghanem. But they
are not nearly so numerous as they were in the time of the Carthaginians, when they
preyed upon peasants and travellers in the very outskirts of the towns, and when the
roads were lined with gibbets on which these animals were crucified. According to a
popidar legend, the Bu-Ghanem territory still contained a few thousands of these
'ferocious beasts some few centuries ago, and the reigning sovereign gave 'the
country to a certain tribe on the condition that they ate no other flesh than that of
the lion.
Elephants have disappeared with the forests which they devastated, but it is
satisfactorily shown that they existed in this country in the early period of local
history ; they were probably exterminated during the Roman sway. In Pliny's
time elephants were already brought in captivity " from beyond the solitudes of
the Syrtes;" but a Spanish writer states, on mere hearsay authority, that this
pachyderm was seen in Tunis as late as the latter end of the sixteenth century.
More fortunate than the elephant, the buffalo has not been completely exterminated,
a few herds still roaming round Lake Bizerta, and even in the island of Eshkel, in the
middle of the lake of the same name ; but they are no longer found in any other part
of the country. A few moufflons still sur^dve in the southern hills of Tunis, but in no
other part of the country. But, as in the rest of North-west Africa, the domestic
fauna has been enriched by the acquisition of that most valuable animal, the camel.
According to Tissot, this animal has for at least fifteen centuries been indispensable
as a beast of burden to the inhobitants of the Barbary States and Sudan.
The reader is doubtless familiar with the accounts of the ancient authors
concerning the struggle which the army of Regulus had to sustain on the borders
of Bagrada against a serpent more than 116 feet long. But at the present day
throughout the whole of Tunis there is not a snake which attains one-fifth of these
proportions. The varieties of the ophidian family have also decreased in number,
although there are probably still many species as yet undiscovered ; while, on the
other hand, many of the reptiles which the ancient writers describe as sprung from
the blood of the Gorgon, must be classed amongst the fabulous animals. One of
the districts most infested by serpents is the mountain region which skirts the
Tunisian Sahara ; the natives have even been compelled to quit the Jebel Telja,
north-east of the Shott-el-Gharsa, on account of the multitude of snakes, of the
tagarcja family, which swarm in this place. Farther cast, towards Sfakes, the
nomads of the steppes have a great dread of the zonr'ig (ec/iis carina fa), which
twines itself round the branches of the tamarisk-trees growing near the springs,
and thence darts down upon its prey. It is probably the same species as ihejaculus,
or " winged serpent," of the Latin authors. A recent expedition, under the direc-
tion of ^L. Uoumet Adanson, has resulted in the discovery of a " hooded " snake,
called hu ftira, the naja of naturalists. The scorpion, another reptile common in
Tunis, is extremely dangerous, much more so than the Algerian or Marocco
FAUNA OF TUNIS. 129
varieties. Its sting often proves fatal. According to the natives, a peculiar kind
of fossiliferous sandstone placed at tlie threshold suffices to prevent scorpions from
getting into the houses ; they are said never to be found in the El- Jem amphi-
theatre, which is built with these stones. Clouds of locusts visit the Tunisian Tell,
and destroy the harvest ; those which devastated Algeria in 1845 were hatched,
according to the statement of Pellissier, near the Tunisian Jerid. Butterflies are
extremely rare in Timis ; the chief charm of our fields is denied to those of
Northern Africa, but a few of these graceful insects are to be seen hovering over
the flowery slopes of the mountains. This scarcity of lepidoptera is due to tha
great numbers of birds, which destroy the caterpillars.
Tunis possesses a few special varieties of birds, amongst others a sparrow from
the Jerid, called the bu-habibi, or " father of friendship," which flies from palm
to palm uttering a shrill note like that of the canary. This elegant bird, celebrated
in all the songs of the country, is looked upon as a sort of good genius, and the
natives protect it zealously against foreign sportsmen ; but all attempts to intro-
duce it into the town of Tunis have hitherto failed. The salt lakes are covered
with blue and pink-coloured flamingoes, which, from a distance, look like soldiers
clad in bright uniforms. Above the fields wheel flocks of starlings, at times dense
enough to cloud the skies.
The seas which bathe the shores of Tunis swarm with fish. Around Jerba and
the Kerkenna Archipelago, which even ancient writings describe as " environed by
stakes," the shallow water is divided into irregular compartments formed of palms
which rise and fall with the tide, and which enclose channels and chambers into
which the fish swim at high water, but from which they are unable to extricate
themselves at low water. The islanders are thus enabled to capture a great
quantity of fish, which they cure and export to the towns on the neighbouring
coast, and even to Italy. The cuttle-fish, which are obtained chiefl}^ on a bank
situated between Sfakes and the islands, are dried in the sun and nearly all exported
to Greece. The Jerba and Kerkenna islanders also fish for sponges, either in
winter by means of long hooked poles which they drag over the rocks, or in
summer by wading in the shallows and feeling for them with their feet.
The shores of Cape Bon, less rich in animal life than those of Kerkenna, are
visited by shoals of fish migrating from one basin of the Mediterranean to the
other. Enclosures erected along the shore at equal distances entrap the tunny-
fish, which are the most highly prized of all these migratory fishes. The Lake of
Bizerta, which, according to' a legend related by El-Edrisi furnishes exactly twelve
varieties of fish, one for each month in the year, is also an important fishing-
ground, chiefly for mullet, which are caught by a very ingenious device, dating pro-
bably from the Punic period. From side to side of the channel is stretched a rope,
along which runs a ring retaining a female mullet, who swims easily in the water ;
the male fish flock round this enticing bait, and are thus caught in shoals with nets.
Palisades of reeds and willows are erected in the middle of the current, through
which the fish can easily enter, but are unable to retreat. Finally, on the western
coast of Tunis, towards Capes Serrat and Negro, the coral banks stretch from the
130 NORTH-WEST AFEICA.
bay of Tabarka westwards along the Algerian coast ; althougli now somewhat
impoverished, these banks were till recently visited by hundreds of vessels from
Torre del Greco. The fishing for those shell-fish (the murex) which supplied a
purple dye, has been abandoned since the time of the Romans. The enormous
heaps of murcx and i^urpura, similar to those on the beaches of Sidon, still seen on
the shores of Jerba and Lake Biban, are a proof of the great importance of this
industry to the old Phoenician colonies along the African seaboard.
Inhabitants of Tunisia.
Beyond the territories of TripoK, which arc mainly deserts, and offer along the
coast but few ports, a narrow cultivated zone, and oases few and far between, Tunis
must naturally have proved pre-eminently a land of promise to invaders coming
either from the sea or from inland. Its fluvial basin, the first occurring in Africa
west of the Egyptian Nile, from which it is separated by such vast wastes, its
fertile plains, its lakes and gulfs teeming with fish, its ports so excellently situated
both for commerce and for the military command of the Mediterranean basin, were
advantages calculated to attract warlike nations, and convert this region into a
battlefield for rival states. Stations covered with the scattered remains of stone
implements and weapons, besides megaliths, menhirs, dolmens, cromlechs, rare in
certain regions of Tunis but very common in others, still recall the presence of
peoples having either the same origin or the same religion as the primitive inhabi-
tants of Brittany and Andalusia.
In the very beginning of written history, the Phoenicians had already estab-
lished themselves at the very angle of the continent, whence they could command
the waters of Sardinia on one side and those of Crete on the other. Then the
Romans, become powerful, desired in their turn to conquer this African foreland,
without which none of their Mediterranean possessions, Sicily, Sardinia, or Italy
itself, would have been free from attack. Thus for more than a century the known
world was shaken by the struggles of these two powerful rivals, until the Phoenician
city was levelled with the ground, and succeeded by a flourishing Roman settle-
ment. The Vandals and the Byzantines afterwards contended for the possession of
Tunis, which many successive invasions of the Arabs brought at last within the
circle of the Mohammedan world. The Turks merely succeeded in giving
governors to the country, and the invasions of the European Christians, under
Louis IX. and Charles V., did not last long enough to produce the slightest per-
ceptible change in the civilisation of Tunis. But, on the other hand, piracy, by
introducing a constant stream of slaves into the country, led undoubtedly to a con-
siderable modification of type amongst the urban populations.
The Berbers and Arabs.
The ancient Carthaginian and Roman masters of this region, both of whom
ruled over it for many centuries and covered it with towns, fortresses, and raonv-
THE BEEBERS AXD AEABS. 18]
ments, have imparted none of their physical characteristics to the people, as far at
least as can now be detected ; nor have any traditions of their former supremacy
survived amongst the local communities. The most careful observers have also
failed to detect any traces of Greek or Yandal influences in the outward appearance,
languages, or usages of the present inhabitants of Timisia. The only two ethnical
elements represented in the country, apart from the Jews and foreigners who have
recently immigrated, are the various groups rightly or wrongly known by the
comprehensive term of "Berbers," and the descendants of the Arab invaders.
These latter, to judge by their speech, and the ascendancy which they owe to their
traditions representing them as the conquerors and reformers of the countrj^
apparently compose the largest part of the nation. But those peoples who in the
time of the Carthaginians constituted, imder various names, the very basis of the
population, are in reality still by far the most numerous, however much they have
become mixed with those other elements which, by a succession of crossings, have
become gradually merged in the native type. The ancient language has not yet
entirely died out, and the inhabitants of Jerba Island still speak a Berber dialect,
and even wrote it at one time. A book written in Berber is still said to be preserved
in one of the villages of this island. The ancient Libyan characters were probably
employed in its composition, because the Jeraba, as the islanders are called, recog-
nise the letters of their own alphabet in the copies of Libyan inscriptions which
have been shown them. The powerful Urghamma tribe, who are found in those
parts of Tunis near the frontier of Tripoli, also speak a Berber dialect closely related
to that employed by the Jeraba. The mountaineers of the Jebels Dwirat and
Metmata, who belong to the same " Kabyle " group as the Tripolitan Berbers of the
Jebel Jefren, also speak this dialect. But it is not true, as was till recently believed,
that the Drid or Derid clan in the northern portion of Tunis on both banks of the
Mejerda, still speak the Berber language. All the northern and central Tunisian
tribes, even those who have jealously preserved their Berber traditions and genea-
logies, have become assimilated to the Arabs in speech. Besides, these two ethnical
elements have become so closely connected during the last thousand years and
more, that many a tribe bearing a single collective name consists in reaKty of dis-
tinct fractions, some of their clans being of Berber others of Arab extraction.
Thus the Khumirs, who are usually considered as forming a homogeneous group, are
divided into four secondary tribes, of which one is of pure Berber origin, whilst
the three others are said to be of Arabic descent ; but all alike employ the
Maugrabin dialect. Still, the traditional descent of a tribe is not a reliable
guarantee for the purity of its origin, because from generation to generation the
race may have been greatly modified by marriage. It is a recognised fact that,
in Northern and Central Tunis, the two races have been almost merged in one by
these crossing ; Arabs and Berbers have become mutually assimilated one to the
other. The relatively low elevation of the uplands and the breadth of the valleys,
which ramify far into the interior of the country, have facilitated this ethnical
fusion, and the abrupt contrasts that are met with in Algeria and Marocco between
the Kabyles and Arabs, who still differ in appearance and customs, are seldom seen
132 NOETH-TN^ST AFRICA.
in Tunis. The pure Berber type is to be found only amongst tbe southern high-
landers and in Jerba Island. Here, as in the Algerian Jurjura, it has been noticed
that, compared to the Arabs, the natives have shorter and broader features, that
their skull and facial outline are less regular, the hair lighter, the glance more
animated, the expression more frank, and that they are altogether of a more
cheerful and enterprising disposition.
Although the difference between the two races is very clearly defined, that
between their several modes of life is much more strongly marked. Both towns-
men and nomads, be their origin what it may, present the strongest contrasts, and
mutually treat each other as if they belonged to two different nations. According
to the latest census, the population of Tunis is equally divided between the " men
of the houses" and the "dwellers in the tents." In the northern regions the
nomad tribes, surrounded on all sides by towns, villages, and cultivated lands, have
a somewhat limited range, whilst in the south they possess the whole extent of
the steppes as their free camping-grounds.
Besides, families which are but half nomad reside in all parts of Tunis, at one
time cultivating the ground in some depression, at another following their herds to
the upland pasture lands. Famine, ci%al strife, and war often break up the
friendly relations between the tribes, and the groups composing them often remove
to a distance of hundreds of miles from each other. Not a single generation
passes without these migrations, which are analogous to those handed down to us
by history and by local traditions. Thus it is that the Drids or Derids, who for-
merly followed in the train of the " Bey of the camp " as taxgatherers, have
become scattered throughout various parts of Tunis on both banks of the Mejerda ;
while the northern Ulad Sidi-Abid tribe, neighbours of the Bejas, have sent an off-
shoot into the Nafta oasis, near the Shott-el- Jerid. According to M. Duveyrier, the
Dedmakas, or Tademakkas, one of the tribes composing the Khumir group, are
closely related to the Kel-Tademakket, now incorporated with the confederation of
the Tuareg Auelimmiden, on the banks of the Niger, and all the other Khumirs,
even those who call themselves Arabs, came from the south and from the west
8ome centuries ago. The Tarabelsi also, who cultivate the land in the suburbs of
Tunis, are evidently descendants of immigrants from Tripoli, as their name seems
to indicate. On the other hand, it is a common tradition in Tunis that the
Maltese, those Arab islanders who have become such fervent Catholics, are closely
related to the Ulad Said who roam throughout the environs of Susa.
At a still recent period a great many nomads lived by war and pillage, either as
soldiers ot the Bey, or as professional brigands. The Urghammas, on the frontiers
of Tripoli, nimiber some thirty thousand individuals, representing an armed force of
at least four or five thousand men, and were exempted from all tribute, for the ex-
cellent reason that they refused to pay it ; but they were officially entrusted with the
defence of the border lands against foreign marauders. Hence, under pretence of
carrying out the Bey's instructions, they crossed into the ncighbf)uriiig territories at
their pleasure, killing the men and carrying off the women, children, and provisions.
The TJrghamma warriors, proud of their sanguinary exploits, were accustomed to
jp'ClLDf
KHUMIR MAN, WOMEN AND CHILD.
THE BEEBERS AND AEABS. 133
make a notch in the stock of their guns for every enemy they had killed, and these
weapons are still to be seen covered with notches from the butt-end to the very
muzzle of the barrel. The Hanenshas of Kalaa-es-Senam, entrenched within their
upland stronghold, held the Bey's soldiers in such contempt that, when advancing
to collect the taxes, the troops were often received with the present of a dead dog,
accompanied by derisive cheers and cries of " There is our tribute to your sove-
reign." The Hamamma, who roam over the steppes in the vicinity of Gafsa, claim
to be faithful subjects of the Bey, mainly, however, because they can thus rob
with the greater impunity. Every male of this tribe is taken by his father, th^
very day of his birth, placed upon a horse already caparisoned, and welcomed
with the following traditional words : " Saddle and bridle, and life on Islam."
That is to say, that the child's only inheritance would be a horse and weapons,
and that it would be his duty to earn his daily bread b}-^ plundering his Mussulman
brethren, inhabitants of the vast Mohammedan world. At the present time the
sons of these bandits, finding it no longer profitable to gain their living by
plunder, emigrate to the cities, more especially to Bone and Tunis, where they are
employed chiefly as porters. Travellers crossing the Urgbamma territory are
often surprised to meet members of this tribe familiar with the French language.
These are emigrants who have become rich and returned to their native land.
Till recently, before the occupation of the country by the French troops had
powerfully modified the internal relations, the whole of the Tunisian tribes as well
as the other communities, were split up into two sof, or hostile leagues, which
frequently changed sides according to the assessment of the taxes or the exactions
of the cadis. One of these two great parties, that of the Ahsimtya, claimed to be
that of the Bey. In Central Tunis this faction was more especially represented
by the great Hamamma tribe, whilst the Beni-Zid were at the head of the Bashiyas,
or the party of the independent Arabs. They claim to be the descendants of a
French renegade, and on this ground they welcomed the explorer Pellissier,
giving him the title of " cousin." The Ulad-Ayars of the Kef district, the Zlas
of Kairwan, the Nefets of Bu-Hedma, the Urghammas, and the Akkaras of the
Tripolitan frontier, were the alKes of the Hammamas, whilst the Metalits of Sfakes
the Suas of Susa, the Majors, the Frashish of the Algerian frontier, and the
Hazems of Cabes, were numbered amongst those Beduins who recognise no masters.
Some years ago, by a skilful stratagem, the Beni-Zid obtained possession of the
Kasbah of Sfakes, and did not evacuate it till they liberated all the prisoners of
their faction whom the Bey's government had imprisoned in this citadel. The
Mahadebas of the coast, between Sfakes and the Syrtis Minor, are respected by all
alike as a tribe of Marabuts or priests. The Bey has exempted them from all
taxes, on the condition that they afford protection and hospitahty to the cara-
vans. The Nefzawa, who occujDy the peninsula of the same name between the
Shott-el-Jerid and the Shott-el-Fejej, are divided between two hostile fac-
tions. The tribes composing the independent party attempted to resist the
Frencll, but after a few desultory skirmishes they fled into Tripolitan territory.
These fugitives, estimated at more than thirty thousand, found it extremely
134
NOETH-TMLST AFRICA.
diflficult to get a living amongst the soutliern tribes, and the majority returned to
sue for peace. The ringleaders of the insurrection belonged to the tribe of the
Nefet.
Amongst the town Arabs, often spoken of as Moors, like their fellow-country-
Fig. 39. — Native Intiaeitants of Tvxis.
Scale 1 : 3,800,000,
Depths.
0 to 160
Feet.
160 to 320
Feet.
320 Feet and
upwards.
600 MUea.
men in the towns of Algeria and Marocco, the numerous ethnical elements of which
they are composed have become so intimately intermingled that it is no*longer
possible to recognise them. Even the Moor.s who were driven out of Spain, some
THE BERBEES AND AEABS. 135
in the fifteenth, others at the commencement of the seventeenth century, and to
whom cultivated land in the suburbs of the cities was assigned as special quarters,
have left in but few towns and villages descendants who can be distinguished from
other Arab townsmen. Some few noble families, however, have preserved their
genealogies, or have even retained the keys of their mansions in Seville or Granada ;
these are still spoken of as Andulos or Andalos, that is to say, " Andalusians."
Moreover, a few towns and villages are mentioned where workmen of Spanish
origin carry on a special industry, and where the traditions of their trade ha-v'c
enabled them to keep alive the memory of their origin. The skilful gardeners of _
Testur and Teburba, on the lower Mejerda, know that their fathers dwelt on the
banks of the Jenil and Guadalquivir; at Nebel, on the east coast, the pottery
industry is maintained by these exiles, who have retained the name of Andalusians,
and who, from father to son, have religiously transmitted the fictile vases brought
from Malaga by their fugitive ancestors. At the time of Peyssonnel's voyage, a
hundred years after their expulsion from the Iberian peninsula, they still spoke
Spanish and dressed in the ancient Andalusian fashion. A certain portion of the
" Moorish " population of Tunis is also composed of renegades of all nations, who
were brought into the country as slaves at the time of the slave trade.
The town peoples, and especially those called Tunsi, or Ulad Tunes, i.e.
" Children of Tunis," are much lighter in colour than the nomad tribes ; some
few are even of an olive colour, the general hue of the skin resembKng that of the
Spaniards and Southern Italians. The face is usually olive, the nose long, the
eyebrows thick, the beard dark and scanty ; they are of middle height, with well-
shaped figures, and graceful and dignified in all their movements. Individuals
are never seen amongst them with the slight development of the calf so noticeable
amongst the Semites of the Arabian peninsula as well as amongst the Hindus ; few
also are met who present such an obese appearance as their fellow- citizens, the
Spanish Jews. The majority of the Tunisians are religious, but perfectly free
from fanaticism. They are staid, dignified, and benevolent in disposition; and
however much they may be corrupted by a commercial career, they are, as a rule,
far honester than their Christian and Jewish rivals. In the days when piracy and
the slave trade flourished, the Tunisians were noted for the kindness with which
they treated their slaves. It is very probable that the " captive maidens of Tunis
and Bizerta," who passed their time spinning yarn in the dwellings of the
Christian pirates, were less happy by far than the Christian women who became
the prisoners of the Tunsi. Except amongst the merchants, there are very few
Timisians who avail themselves of the Prophet's example to espouse more than
one wife at a time. In industry, taste, aptitude for business, and finally in educa-
tion and literary cidture, the Tunisians are considered to be the superiors of all
the other Moors, who, however, can claim the palm for better morals. Before the
Turkish rule, and when the southern tribes encamped on the commercial routes
had not yet become brigands, Tunis was the great market for exporting the goods
of all the peoples of the Sudan. The Negroes of the Niger and Lake Tzad con-
sidered all merchandise other than that manufactured by the Tunsi as unworthy
136 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
of their notice. " Tunis invents, Algiers prepares, and Orau destroys," says an
Arab proverb quoted by Theophile Gautier, but for physical energy and love of
work the proverb must be read in an inverse way. The Africans of Tripoli are
the most indifferent workmen ; those of Tunis are preferable, although inferior to
those of A-lgiers, who, in their turn, have to yield the palm to the natives of
Marocco.
The Turks.
The Turkish element, formerly represented by the Beys and Janissaries, has
for some time past been on the wane in Tunis, and now Turks, properly so called,
are no longer to be seen in this country. The Osmanli, and together with them
the reigning family, by intermarrying have all become Kulugli, and are. gradually
being absorbed in the predominating race of the Arab "Moors." The Malekite
religion, to which they belonged, is gradually being replaced by the Hanefite
ceremonies, which are practised by the bulk of the Maugrabin Mussulmans.
Religious heresy has, nevertheless, a large number of followers in the towns of
Tunis. The Beni-Mzab, who regularly emigrate to Tunis as charcoal merchants
and firemen at the baths, arc all Kharojites, or " Dissenters." They are also called
Khamsiya or " People of the Fifth," that is to say, that they do not belong to any
of the four orthodox sects. Like the Beni-Mzab and the Berbers of the Jebel
Nefusa, the Jeraba are also " People of the Fifth," and practise all the rites of
the Ibadhite persuasion. They wear the sheshia, the gandura made of cloth
embroidered with brilliant coloured designs, look upon the cat as an unclean beast,
and hold the chameleon in awe. The rites of their religion oblige them to take
off their nether garments when they prostrate themselves to say their prayers.
The orthodox religious brotherhoods are represented in Tunis more especially by
the Tijaniya, the Madaniya, the Aissawa, and in many tribes live holy families
composed of Shorfa, or " Sons of the Prophet." As a general rule, more fanatics
are found amongst the townsmen than amongst the nomads. According to
Pellissier, this is due to the kind of education which prevails in the Mussulman
world, where " those who are the most learned are also the most narrow-minded."
Besides, many practices anterior to the advent of Mohammedanism are still extant
in this country. The natives still tie strands of wool to certain trees pointed out
by their traditions ; they have a great dread of the evil eye, and protect their
dwellings from it by the marks of their five fingers, the numeral 5 — the symbol
of the fish — being considered as especially favourable. The father of a large
family contents himself with the remark, " I have five children," so as not to
mention other numbers of less propitious or even fatal influence. In times of
drought, the natives have recourse to charms and witchcraft, so as to open " the
gates of the clouds." When the rain is very tardy in coming, and their young
crops and harvests are in danger, the people occasionally seize hold of their kaid
and plunge him into a spring, taking care to let the water trickle through his
beard. " This is their fashion of celebrating rogation days," says Beul^.
THE JEWS.
137
The Jews.
In proportion to the Mohammedan population, the Jews are more numerous in
the regency of Tunis than in Algeria. They are grouped together in important
communities, not only in the city of Tunis, but also in the other towns of the
coast and in Jerba Island. Many of these Israelites are the destjendants of Jews
settled in the country before the conquest by the Arabs, and it may be asked
whether these families, till recently looked on with contempt, do not contain some
elements of the ancient
Carthaginian masters of the ^S- 40.— Tunisian Jewess.
country. The Jews driven
out of Spain and Portugal,
as well as all those who
have immigrated within the
last few hundred years, are
generally known by the name
of Grana, that is to say,
natives of Leghorn — Gurna,
or Leghorn, having been
the principal market of the
Jews expelled from the Ibe-
rian peninsula. The Grana,
most of whom had placed
themselves under the pro-
tection of the Italian con-
sul, or the representatives
of other foreign powers, had
rarely cause to complain
of the Tunisians, whilst the
" Old Jews" were denied all
rights to appeal against any
injustice or extortion they
had had to submit to. A
great many families were
compelled to abjure their
faith to avoid persecution ;
but although they willingly consort with their ancient co-religionists, they
have remained Mussulmans. There are also Jews in Tunis whose doctrines
have become modified. Such are the Israelites of Jerba Island who worship
saints, and show great veneration for the Mussulman marabuts. So recently
as 1868, seventeen Tunisian Jews were assassinated, and no one dared to
pursue the murderers, who got off with impunity. A special headdress distin-
guished the Jews who had no rights from those whom no one dared to molest
without the permission of the consuls. By a singular irony of fate, the majority
AFRICA I. /
138 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
of the Spanish Jews in Tunis, remembering that their ancestors came from the
Iberian peninsula, have laid claim to their origin so as to obtain the protection of
their ancient persecutors. In the same way, before the annexation of Tunis to
France a number of refugees, who had quitted Algeria to evade submission to the
hated conquerors, claimed to be Algerians, with a view to obtaining the support of
the French Consul against the Bey's Grovermnent.
All the Tunisian Jews, whether of native or extraneous origin, follow the
Spanish rite, reading the Pentateuch, and sapng their prayers in Hebrew ; never-
theless, one of their invocations is ia Arabic, and this, according to Maltzan, is pre-
cisely the one most frequently uttered, and indeed the only one that the women use.
This ancient prayer of the persecuted people beseeches the Lord to " let loose his
wrath upon Spain, as well as on Ismael, Kedar, and Edom," the three latter names
beino- fio-uratively applied to the Arabs, Mussulmans of every race, and Christians.
In spite of these requests addressed to an avenging Deity, the Tunisian Jews are
mild and very pacific by nature ; nor do they appear to merit the reputation for
greed which they share in common with all the rest of their brethren ; but they
are very adroit in seizing the opportunity for developing new industries. They are
increasing rapidly, the number of births being far in advance of the deaths. For
some time past they have crossed over the boundaries of the Tunisian liar a, or ghetto^
to which they were restricted, and have spread throughout all the quarters of the
town. In certain parts of the bazaar they have actually driven out the Arabs,
o-aining ground shop by shop. They are no longer distinguished by a special
costume, many of them dressing in the European fashion, as the laws which
forbade them to clothe themselves like the Mussidmans have been abolished. But
they are easily distinguished by the type of physiognomy, by their bearing, and
often by their obesity, the Spanish Jews of Tunis having a singular tendency to
become corpulent. Till quite recently, young girls were subjected to a special
fattening process, art stepping in to assist nature in making them " substantial
members of society." These young girls are not considered "presentable" till
their arms and legs have become large enough to retain the rings and bracelets
which their mothers had worn. Whilst in nearly all other countries of this world
the Israelitish race is distinguished by the relative purity of its morals, the Jews
of Tunis contrast forcibly with the other inhabitants precisely by their gross
immorality ; in fact, they may be looked upon as the chief source of all the vice
of this city.
The Europeans.
Like the Jews, the Europeans residing in Tunis form two distinct classes, the
families of the merchants settled in the country for several generations, and the
immigrants of recent date, who still look upon themselves as foreigners. The class
of the " Old Tunisians," which comprises a few hundred French and Italian fami-
lies, till recently constituted a kind of nation ^\dthin a nation, like the Levantines
of Constantinople and Smyrna. Their nationality conferred privileges upon them
TOPOGRAPHY OF TUNISIA. 189
of whicli they T^ere proud. Grouped round their respective consuls, they escaped
the extortions to which the natives were exposed, and this privileged position had
naturally the effect of binding them to their native land. But in spirit and morals
they differ strikingly from their fellow-countrymen beyond the seas. Below the
families of these merchant princes is a restless crowd of hangers-on, mostly im-
poverished immigrants. The English consul might surround himself with a
veritable army, because the Maltese are much more numerous amongst the
Europeans settled in Timis, if however the name of European can properly be
applied to these Arab Catholics. The vicinity of the Maltese archipelago, which is
but 20 miles from the port of Tunis, enables the poorest to seek their fortunes on
the mainland, where they settle down as porters, watermen, merchants, innkeepers,
and gardeners. Certain streets in Tunis are entirely occupied by Maltese, and even on
the most distant routes from the capital these island traders are to be seen tra-
versing dangerous highland regions on foot, with their wives and children, and
driving before them horses laden with various kinds of merchandise. The Calabrians
and Sicilians also form a considerable section of the population, and to these must
now be added the ever-increasing colony of the Northern Italians.
Although till recently inferior in numbers to the Italians and Anglo-Maltese, the
French colony was the most important, thanks to its nimierous Beni-Mzab and
other Algerian allies. The annexation of Tunis to France has naturally resulted
in a proportionate increase of French immigrants, and they are settling, not only in
the capital, but also in the commercial towns along the coast. The railway which
crosses the whole country from east to west, the telegraph stations scattered
throughout the territory, the camps and fortresses occupying the strategical
positions, and the tracts of land bought up for cultivating vines and olives, all
attract to the interior a continually increasing stream of French clerks, merchants,
speculators, and workmen of every description, as well as the Kabyles who call
themselves Frenchmen, and who come to offer themselves as reapers and harvesters.
The social and economic possession of Tunis was much more rapidly accomplished
than that of Algeria. This country, after having been so long separated from
Europe, and by its history become connected with the Asiatic world, is evidently
resuming in the western basin of the Mediterranean the position which it should
hold from the nature and relief of the land, its flora, and its climate.
Topography of Tunisia.
El-Bihan, the frontier town near the Tripolitan coast, would be of some strate-
gical and commercial importance were the two straits, which it overlooks at the
entrance of the Bahiret-el-Biban, or " Lake of the Gates," of suflScient depth to
permit vessels of large size to enter this vast basin. As it is, there is scarcely
waterway for the fishing-boats to anchor before the fort. Besides, its export and
import trade, at any time but slight, has been transferred north-westwards to the har-
bour of Zarzis, or Jer jis, a town consisting of five distinct villages, which are scattered
amongst cornfields, palm and olive groves. This region was at one time so fertile
140
NORTH- WEST AFEICA.
that, according to a local tradition, a canal, excavated in tlie plains of Zian, or
Medinet-Zian, an inland town now in ruins, carried down to the port of Zarzis a
stream of olive-oil which the natives collected in barrels and exported. But the
plundering hordes of the Akkara and TJrghamma Beduins have effectually dried
up this river of oil by cutting down the olive groves. Statues, Roman inscriptions,
and other valuable antiquities have recently been discovered at Zian. According
to Barth, the Copts had at one time very numerous colonies on this part of the
coast between Tripoli and Jerba Island.
"Westwards are the towns of Met a me r and Kasr-el-Mudenin, inhabited by tribal
groups of the Urghammas, built on fortified mounds in the midst of the plain.
Fig. 41. — Houses at Kase El-Mtjdenin.
Before the occupation of Tunis by the French, the Kasr or Castle of El-Mudenin
sustained a siege against the bey's army. In these to\\Tis may be seen the gradual
transition from the cave architecture to that of houses, properly so called. Buildings
are erected in such a manner as to resemble cliffs, in which oval apertures made at
various heights represent the openings of caves and grottoes. The natives reach
these artificial caves, some of which are five or six stories high, by means of ladders
or steps roughly he^-n in the face of the wall. In the neighbouring mountains,
and more especially in the Metmata range, many such dwellings hollowed out in
these beds of soft chalk are very similar to those of the Tripolitan troglodytes.
TOPOGEAPHT OF TUNISIA. 141
The caves, wkicli serve as dwellings for men and enclosures for domestic animals,
are hollowed out laterally at the bottom of a kind of pit open to the sky, and with
vertical sides. A slightly inclined passage, defended by a closed gate, leads from
below to the surface of the earth. In the surrounding plains there are also larger
excavations to be seen, similar to those made by the Gauls, and which are still used
in the country of the northern Gallas. They were doubtless used by the natives
as places of refuge when their country was overrun by hostile tribes. Sepulchral
monuments in the shape of truncated pyramids have also been found in this reo-ion
of Tunis : they are encircled by an enclosure of stakes, menhirs, or other meo-alithij.
Jerba Island, some 160,000 acres in extent, is the most populous part of Tunis ;
proportionately speaking, it was nearly as densely peopled as France, until, a few
years ago, many families were swept away by the cholera. Its forty thousand
inhabitants look upon their island as a kind of large town, and all its numerous
groups of houses, protected by forts of Spanish construction, are termed humts, or
"quarters." Most of the Jerabas dwell in little hamlets, or else in isolated
cottages standing in their separate enclosures. The whole island is under cultiva-
tion, and although all the water for irrigating purposes comes from wells and
cisterns, it is extremely productive, thanks to the ceaseless labours of the patient
Beduins who till the land. Jerba Island of all other Tunisian regions possesses
the finest olive-trees, the oil from which is greatly preferred to that of the main-
land. The other fruits obtained from the orchards — apricots, pomegranates, figs,
and almonds — are also excellent ; while the vine, cultivated mainly by the Jews,
yields a golden wine which is compared with those of Samos and Santorin. Clumps
of palm-trees, dispersed in the midst of the gardens, are protected by law and
peld dates which, although better than those of Kerkenna, are far inferior to those
of Beled-el- Jerid. These trees are often used for the manufacture of palm- wine,
which is obtained by means of incisions made at the base of the trunk.
The agriculture to which the Jerabas pay such great attention is, however,
insufficient to give employment to all the inhabitants. The seaside communities
are engaged in the capture of fish, octopuses, and sponges, while the potters manu-
facture a peculiar vessel, which acquires its white tint by being immersed in the
sea. Numbers of weavers, each working in his own hut, manufacture those
coverlets and materials of silk, wool, and cotton which are so greatly admired in
the bazaar of Tunis, and which are exported to considerable distances, even as far
as the markets of Bornu. The Jeraba men emigrate in crowds to the large towns
of Timis and Tripoli, and, Hke their co-religionists, the Beni-Mzab, they are found
everywhere, even in the remote inland markets of the continent, as weU as in
Constantinople and Egypt. IS'evertheless, the Maltese are beginning to compete
with them in Jerba itself. In 1860, as many as three hundred had already settled
in the principal town of Jerba.
The ancient capital, which like the entire island bore the name of Meninx, was
situated on the shore of the eastern strait, at the head of the bridge which connected
the island with the mainland. The still remaining ramparts of this great city
are 3 miles in circumference. In all parts of the island, which in the time of
142 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
the Romans was a health-resort for the rich merchants of Byzacence, are found
t-5 I
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other ruins of towns and villas, but no traces of any buildings remarkable for
their architecture. On the site of Mcninx all that is now to be seen is one of
TOPOGEAPHY OF TUNISIA. 148
those half-ruined horj, or old strongholds, which are dotted round the whole
island. The only humt on the southern shore which merits the name of town,
is the Humt Ajim, standing close to the western strait, which is practicable
to ships.
The present cajjital of Jerba stands on the northern side, in a position very
unfavourable to trade, for large vessels are obliged to anchor some miles from the
shore. This town, or rather this collection of scattered houses, is merely known
by the name of the " market; " it is, in fact, the Humt Suk, or Suk-el-Kebir, the
rendezvous of all the Jeraba merchants. The Jews, who are very numerous;
and are the only persons grouped together in a compact commimity, inhabit
dirty, unsavoury, and dilapidated houses. They claim to have arrived in the island
at the time of the Babylonian captivity.
In the centre of the Catholic cemetery, a column perpetuates the memory of the
ancient BorJ Eius, or " Castle of the Heads," a pyramid of bones which the Turks
erected in 1560, by heaping up the skulls of the vanquished Spaniards. About
the year 1850, the Tunisian Government caused this ghastly monument to be
demolished, as a mark of international courtesy.
On the side of the Syrtis Minor facing the continent, the largest group of
houses is that to which the name of Cabes has been given. It is not a town, but a
collection of villages and hamlets scattered in the midst of the palm-trees. Viewed
from the sea, the oasis looks like an island of verdure through which glare the
white walls of the buildings here and there ; a streamlet, whose upper bed is
occasionally dry and nearly always blocked by sands at low tide, winds between the
villages, ramifying in all directions like canals of irrigation. Near the mouth of
the wed stands the Borj Jed id, or " New Castle," surroimded by the wooden huts
of a village of "Mercanti," to which the soldiers have given the name of
" CoquinviUe." Many a great city has, nevertheless, sprung from a much humbler
beginning than this.
Farther up, both banks are covered by the houses of Jara, the principal town
of the oasis. By the very course of the irrigating trenches, disposed in broken
lines, like the ramparts of a citadel, it is at once evident that this was formerly
the site of a fortified city. It was doubtless the citadel of the ancient Carthaginian
town of Ta-Capa, which was successively occupied by the Romans, Byzantines
and Arabs, and whose name may still be traced in its present form of Cahes, Gahes,
or Gahs. The ruins of Roman buildings have been employed in constructing the
villages of Jara and Menzel, the latter situated over half a mile farther south, on
the right bank of the wed, in the central part of the oasis, where the market is
held.
StiU farther west are many other villages dispersed amongst the pahn groves.
Altogether the various villages of the oasis have a collective population of about
ten thousand souls, amongst whom are included a few hundred Jews. The small
European colony has been recently increased by a French garrison, Cabes having
been selected as the capital of a military circle ; a Franco-Arab school has also
been opened here. Before the arrival of the French, feuds were of constant
144 NOETH-WEST AFEICA.
occurrence between Jara and Menzel : hence, as has been jocularly remarked, the
name of Arad, or " Discord," which has been given to the province.
Thanks to their orchards and fields, the people of Cabes may be looked upon as
the most highly favoured of all other Timisian communities. The land, rendered
fruitful by the irrigating works, is divided into countless plots, separated from each
other by hedges of cactus, earth walls, and thickset palms. Fig, ahnond, orange,
and other fruit-trees grow in wild profusion beneath the fan-Kke leaves of the
palms swapng in the breeze above them ; the ^dne twines its slender tendrils
ground the branches of the trees, and barley ripens in the shade of the overhanging
foliage.
But neither the banana nor the sugar-cane, which composed the wealth of
Cabes in the eleventh century, are any longer cultivated, and of its ancient forests
of mulberry-trees but a few specimens now remain. The fertility of the surround-
ing lands has made Cabes the most important port of call along this portion of the
coast; it also exports the alfa grass coming from Central Tunis, and it is, moreover,
of considerable strategical importance. Situated at the eastern extremity of the
depression which, through the Shott-el- Jerid, penetrates far inland, Cabes enables
caravans and expeditions, by journeying from oasis to oeisis, to skirt the southern
foot of the mountains and plateaux of Tunis and Algeria. During the Algerian
insurrections, it was through this town that weapons and supplies were obtained.
A large smuggling trade thus sprang up along this route, which threatened to
become extremely dangerous to the security of French power on the Saharian
frontier. By taking possession of Cabes, the French have thus secured one of the
gates of Algeria. But Cabes has, unfortunately, no port.
The ancient creek of Tacapa, which, however, was only available to small
vessels, has been choked up by the sands, and depths sufficient for vessels of heavy
tonnage must be sought at some distance from the shore. The creation of an arti-
ficial port by means of jetties and dredgings has recently been proposed ; its
probable site has already been selected, near the mouth of the Wed Melah, or " Salt
River," which receives the waters of the mineral springs of Ain Udref. An
artesian well recently sunk near the Wed Melah, about half a mile from the
Mediterranean, is over 400 feet deep, and supplies an abundant stream of water,
which rises 13 feet above the ground. This projected harbour is to be completed
by a railway which wiU be connected with the Algerian system through Gafsa,
Tebessa, and Suk-Ahras. Bona and Cabes would thus become two corresponding
ports, the traffic between which would be directly conducted overland, and the
merchants would be no longer compelled to skirt the Tunisian promontories to the
north. When Cabes is able to receive vessels of heavy tonnage, no other town of
all the French possessions will present greater advantages as a terminus on the
coast for a railway crossing the Sahara to Lake Tsad. From the same place will
also start the longitudinal line running from sea to sea south of the island of
Maghreb. The new town already enjoys a considerable trade, exporting alfa,
dates, and henna by a regular ser^^ce of steamboats.
West of Cabes, and near the southern shore of the Shott-el-Fejej, several
TOPOGEAPHY OF TUNISIA. 145
yillages, scattered in the midst of plantations like those of Cabes, constitute a centre
of population known collectively as El-Hamma, or the " Hot Springs." These
springs are the Aquae Tacapitanae of the ancients. The four hot sprino-s, which
have given their name to the oasis, have a temperature of from 93° to 113° F.
and are still used by the natives, who have re-erected an establishment on the site
of the ancient hot baths.
Beyond the El-Hamma oasis, which is environed by sands and steppes overrun
by the Beni-Zid Berbers, the traveller must pursue his way between the escarp-
ments of the Jebel Tebaga and the shores of the great sebkha before reaching the
palm groves of Nefzaiva, about 36 miles distant. These palm groves, some forty in
number, standing in the midst of the sands or encircled by rocks, occupy the lower
portions of the triangular peninsula which stretches north-westwards between the
Shott-el-Fejej and the Shott-el-Jerid. The most numerous follow in succession
along the shore of the great shott on the southern slope of the chain of hills and
dunes. In many places they form a continuous forest of palms, very picturesque
in appearance but very dangerous to live in, on account of the miasmas arising
from the surrounding lagoons. In Nefzawa it is by no means rare to see ten
or twelve date-trees springing obliquely from the same root, in such a way as
to form a vast framework of verdure encircled by graceful clusters of pendent
fruit.
Most of the villages are enclosed by walls and ditches, which would be sufficient
to protect them from the attacks of the Beduins, but not against those of an
organised force. Kebilli, near the north-east extremity of the Shott-el-Jerid, is the
principal village of Nefzawa, and in a neighbouring hamlet, to the west, are to be
seen some inscriptions which afford grounds for believing that, in the time of
Hadrian, the chief Roman station stood on this spot. The settled population of
the Nefzawa oasis, now assimilated to the Arabs in religion and speech, belong to
two primitive races merged in a common nationality of half-breeds. One of these
elements was a tribe of Negro agriculturists, the other the Nefzawa Berbers, a
branch of the great Luata tribe, originally from Marmaridis. Around these
inhabitants of the oasis are the encampments of the Arab tribes, most of whom are
of a peaceful disposition. Amongst them are the Merazigs, who feed their flocks
to the south of Nefzawa and frequent the market of Du% ; they occasionally push
on their trading expeditions as far as Ghadames. Farther south, in the few oases
and around the wells skirting the southern part of the Shott-el-Jerid, is the
powerful Ghorib tribe, which is allied to the Algerian peoples of the Wed Suf,
from whom it is separated by the region of sandhills. A much smaller tribe, but
still very dangerous on account of their plundering habits, is that of the TJlad
Yakub, or " Sons of Jacob," who are not to be confused with another of the same
name, encamped in the mountains south of the Mejerda. These Ulad Yakub of the
desert wander to the south-east of Nefzawa over upland steppes, whence they com-
mand the routes between Tunis and Ghadames. These are the nomads who have
stopped the direct caravan trade between Tunis and Nigritia. Like the Tuaregs,
the people of the oases, both nomad and settled, wear the litza?n, or veil, which
146
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
conceals the face from below the root of the nose. In the ISTefzawa district
M. Toisserenc de Bort has found numerous polished stone implements.
"West of Nefzawa, on the other side of the Sebkha-el-Faraxm, rise the hills
of the narrow isthmus which is known by the special name of Belad-el-Jerid,
" Country of Palms," or merely as Jerid, i.e. " The Palm Grove," a designation
often extended to the whole region of the southern oases. The Jerid is, in fact,
pre-eminently the date country. Surrounded as it is by shotts and sands, and
protected from the north wind by the mountains which rise to the north-east, the
, Jerid undoubtedly possesses that " fiery air " which is so essential to the life of the
palm. Thanks to its abundant springs, it can supply these trees with all the moisture
they require ; while the water, slightly warmer in temperature than the atmosphere,
Fig. 43. — Peninsula op Nefzawa.
Scale 1 : 600,000.
— Traek.
12 Mijes
forms veritable thermal rivers which stimulate the growth of the trees. The oases
of the Jerid are, as M. Duveyrier expresses it, " natural hothouses," in which
tropical plants such as flourish in the "West Indies and the Sunda islands might be
cultivated ; but the natives are content with their exquisite dates — the best of which
were formerly reserved for the bey's own table — their no less highly appreciated
oranges, fruits of all kinds, vegetables and cereals. Their existence would be one
of perfect ease and comfort were they not weighed downi by the heavy taxes.
The Jerid has nearly a million palm-trees in a superficial area not exceeding
5,000 acres ; 20,000 camels visit this oasis annually, and depart laden with fruit.
The women also employ themselves in weaving and making burnous, haiks, and
coverlets, which are greatly sought after throughout the whole of "West Africa.
But the inhabitants of Jerid no longer enjoy the profitable direct trade which they
TOPOGEAPHY OF TUNISIA.
147
carried on witli the seaports and with the towns of the Sahara during mediaeval
times, when they were the purveyors of slaves for the Barbary States. Agents and
brokers who have settled in the country, more especially the Jews and the Mzabites,
now export the products of the oases far and wide. The NafEa oasis has been
named Marsat-es-Sahara, or the " Port of the Desert," and the place is still shown
whence the vessels are said to have set sail, and where the remains of a ship are
even stated to have been found.
Throughout the whole of the " Palm Country," the Arab towns have been pre-
ceded by those of the Roman period, the remains of which are still to be seen in
many places, although the greater part of the materials have been utilised in
building convents, mosques, and defensive works. In the oasis of Tozer, the distri-
bution of the water is still regulated by E-oman dykes. As in most of the other
Fig. 44. — Jeeid.
Scsale 1 : 600,000.
L , of breenwicn
Track.
12 Miles.
oases, the towns are noli compactly built, but consist of quarters scattered amid the
surrounding plantations. The western oasis of Nafta, which enjoys a sort of
reKgious pre-eminence, a certain number of its inhabitants being " Sons of the
Prophet," comprises nine distinct villages and four convents. Tozer, the largest
and most populous of all the oases, is divided into nine quarters, and serves as the
political capital of the Jerid ; El-Udian, the eastern group of oases, consists of
many villages, amongst others, Dgash, Kriz, and Seddada, which are some distance
from each other ; lastly, an oasis called El-Hamma, or the " Baths," like that in the
vicinity of Cabes, comprises four groups of cottages, sheltered by the palms. The
copious hot spring (96-8° F.), from which it has received its name, falls into a basin
of Roman construction ; it is sKghtly sulphureous, and the natives endow it with
astonishing virtues, due to the merits of a saint buried in a neighbouring tomb.
A rock, standing north of Kriz in the El-Udian oasis, is pierced with ancient
148 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
quarries, and with a cavern called the grotto of the " Seven Sleepers." From the
summit of this hill, commanding the narrowest isthmus between the Shott-el-
Jerid and the Shott Garsa, an admirable view can be obtained of the chain of oases
and of the two vast basins of lacustrine origin, which stretch away to the east and
west beyond the horizon. In the north rise the mountains whence the Hamamma
spies signaled the approach of caravans or of solitary travellers to the marauders
hdno- in ambush b}- the roadside. Not far from Kriz, on the north margin of the
Shott- cl-Jerid, there is to be seen a round figure surmounted by a crescent, carved
on the face of a rock. According to Tissot this de^'ice, representing the moon, is a
remnant of the old Libyan religion. In some respects the inhabitants of the Jerid
differ in their manners and customs from the surrounding tribes, who accuse them
of eating the flesh of the dog.
In the valley of the wed which, under the name of Tarfawi, or " Eiver of the
Tamarisks," ultimately runs dry in the sands at the eastern extremity of the Shott
Garsa, follow in succession a few oases, between which intervene wild solitudes.
Towards the source of the wed, here called Bu-Haya, occurs the first oasis, that of
Feriana, whose two distinct hamlets constitute a zawya or religious establishment
for the nomads in the vicinity, who belong to the Ulad Sidi-Abid tribe, and who
form a kind of brotherhood. The wretched buildings of Feriana are a poor
substitute for the monvmients of the Roman city, probably Thelepte, which formerly
stood in the vicinity. The ruins explored by M. Guerin occupy a space of at least
three miles in circumference, and nearly all the blocks of stone used in erecting the
public buildings, baths, theatres, and even private houses, are of enormous size.
The mountain whence this stone was obtained has been quarried to a vast dej^th ;
entire strata have disappeared, and the summit is now crowned by an ancient castle.
Besides the ruins of Medinet-el-KacUmah, or the " Old City," numerous Roman
remains, especially tombs, are also found on both banks of the wed, now almost
uninhabited. South of Feriana is a rock which has been blackened as if by fire,
whence its name of Hajar Soda, or "Black Rock." Another rock of similar
appearance has been discovered near the El-Hamma oasis by M. Guerin, who
supposes that these " Black Rocks " are aerolites.
The Gafsa oasis, occasionally looked upon as belonging to the Jerid, although
it is separated from the isthmus of Kriz by a waterless desert zone of a day's
march in extent, is situated on the principal bend of the Wed Beyash, which is a
continuation of the upper course of the Bu-Haya and becomes the Tarfawi farther
down. The town, which of all those in southern Tunis has the largest number of
inhabitants living in a compact group of houses, stands on a terrace surrounded by
a circle of rocks and mountains a few miles distant. One of these mountains is
pierced by deep quarries, which branch off into labyrinthine passages. Founded
by Melkart, or the Libyan Hercules, the Kafaz, or " Walled Town " of the
Pha-nicians, and the Roman Cnpsa, whose name has hardly changed during the
course of centuries, is, according to Mannert, sjTionymous with the city of
Hecatompylae, where Hanno gained his famous victory during the second Punic
war. The strategical importance of an oasis situated on the extreme verge of
S>1
'S^vi?
; ^'
'"h^^ith'.
.''^
- "' \i r' i:-\u'r* ■ •
SFAEES. 149
the cultivable region, at the outlet of the mountains, between the sandy plain of
Aamra and the approaches to the desert, was never at any time lost sight of ; it
forms the converging point of two zones, differing from each other both in appear-
ance and populations. A kasbah, defended by guns, protects this frontier town
against the incm-sions of the Hamamma tribe ; but the Tunisian soldiers are now
replaced by those of France, and Gafsa has become the capital of a military
subdivision.
The people of this town are well educated and, as in the Jerid, speak a much
purer language than that employed on the coast. Columns, inscriptions, and
ramparts recall the ancient Eoman Capsa, and many a modern structure contains
blocks of stone obtained from these ruins. South of the town stretches a planta-
tion of over a hundred thousand palms, whose dense foliage overshadows an
undergrowth of fruit-trees. These palms are loftier than those of Nafta, and
yield a no less exquisite fruit. The water which nourishes the plantation yields a
constant and copious supply, so that the people of the oasis have no need to fight
for the possession of this precious stream. The three principal springs, ranging
in temperature from 84° to 89° F., fall into basins of Roman construction, still
known by the name of termil, and frequented by the Arabs, who bathe in its tepid
waters, utilising the chambers excavated in the surrounding walls. These thermal
waters contain a large quantity of fish of the chromis species, which by their
characteristics are apparently related to exclusively marine varieties. Tortoises
and black serpents, of the newly discovered trojndonotus family, are also found in
the basins and streamlets of Gafsa. Like the other oases of southern Tunis, Gafsa
is a busy centre of the weaving industry, and its linen and silken haiks, which
are exported by the local Jewish traders, are justly admired in the Timis market.
The flocks of the Hamamma tribe supply the people with the raw material from
which they manufacture rugs and bui-nous.
A Roman road, rediscovered by Messrs. Rebatel and Tirant, connects Gafsa
with the shores of the Syrtis Minor, traversing the fountains and the small oasis
of El-Gwettar, the country of gum-trees, and the mineral springs of Bu-Hedma.
Along the coast north of Cabes, follow in succession at long intervals camping-
grounds and hamlets, in the territory of the Mehadebas, who are the " peaceful
descendants of a venerated marabut." The most important collage on the coast
is the now neglected little port of Mahrez, whose inhabitants, scarcely a thousand
in number, are mostly engaged in making esparto grass into mats and brooms.
Beyond this point stands the village of Bograra, in the midst of the ruins of the
Pimico-Roman city of Giethis.
Sfakes.
The second largest town of Tunis is Sfahes (SfaJcs, Sfax), situated on the margin
of the strait, about 30 miles broad, which separates the Kerkenna Archipelago from
the mainland. Its population, which Pellissier calculated at eight thousand souls
in 1848, appears to have more than tripled since that time. The people are
crowded together in the lofty houses which skirt the narrow streets of the city,
160
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
and overflow into the new quarter which has been built along the beach outside
the south-western ramparts. Viewed from afar, all that is visible of Sfakes are
the white walls of its quadrangular enclosure and the tall minarets of its mosques.
The towers, battlements, and angular bastions give the whole more of a mediaeval
aspect than is presented by any of the other fortified Tunisian towns. At the
southern angle of the ramparts stands a citadel said to have been built by
Christian slaves. Situated as it is, at a considerable elevation on a* sloping ground,
Sfakes has no permanent streams, nor even springs or wells, and all the water
used in the town is drawn from numerous cisterns within and without the
fortifications.
A few Roman remains are to be seen in the suburbs, but no inscription has
yet been found which enables this town to be identified with any of the Roman
stations mentioned by classical writers, although it most probably stands on the
site of the ancient Taphrura. Some 12 miles to the south-west, on the shores of
the gulf, is the rained town of Thine, evidently identical with the Thitm of the
Romans. This place stood at the extreme point of the ditch which Scipio the
yoimger had excavated in the south of the Roman territory, in order to separate
it from the country of the Numidians.
Some two or three thousand Jews and Europeans (Maltese, Italians, and French),
dwell in Sfakes, nearly all in Rabat, or the lower town, where the trading interests
are chiefly concentrated ; a recently planted boulevard now connects this quarter
with the camp situated north of the town. The Mussulmans live in the upper
town, within the ramparts. The "Sfaksika," or people of Sfakes, differ in some
respects from their Tunisian co-religionists, with whom they arc unwilling to be
identified. Hence they may be at once recognised by a special costume, although
the chief difference lies in their mental characteristics. They are more enterpris-
ing, fonder of work, much more intelligent, and altogether more active and solid
than their neighbours. They are said to be zealous Mussulmans, the very children
frequenting the mosques, and the women never, as elsewhere, neglecting their
prayers. At the time of the occupation of Tunis by the French troops in 1881,
the Sfaksikas also gave proof of their patriotic spirit : almost single-handed they
resisted the invasion, and fought desperately during the bombardment, which
they might have easily avoided. Many of the institutions of Sfakes show the
extent of the public spirit of the people ; not only have they founded mosques and
convents, but also a hospital, which is well supported. Outside the walls a central
reservoir, called the " Help," is due to the munificence of one citizen. The " 365 "
secondary cisterns which surround it, disposed like the crjrpts of a necropolis, also
bear witness to the brotherly feeling by which the rich are animated towards
their poorer Mussulman brethren. Other vast reservoirs have been constructed
in the suburbs of the town, and some houses are pro\'idcd with an apparatus
which enables the wayfarer to quench his thirst by drawing through an open pipe
the water of a hidden cistern. A project is now in hand to construct an aqueduct
some 36 miles long, which is intended to supply the town with water from the
Bu-Uedma heights. The people of Sfakes show their love of work by their
SFAKRS. 151
agricultural labours, wMch, beyond a zone of sand surrounding the town like a
circular road, bave brought under cultivation an extent of land varying in breadth
from 4 to 12 miles. Some years ago over 1,000,000 oHve trees were planted round
the town, and in 1874 the total yield of oil in the Sfakes district was estimated at
upwards of 5,500,000 gallons.
In the outskirts there are said to be from eight to ten thousand enclosures, all
separated from each other by cactus hedges, above which rise fruit-trees and a
borj, or square tower, in which the proprietor keeps his implements, and which
is strong enough to resist the attacks of marauders. The plain, bristling with ,
thousands of these little forts, resembles the cultivated districts in North Persia,
which are kept in a state of defence against the raids of the Turcomans. In
summer nearly all these landowners dwell in their respective enclosures, leaving
the town almost deserted.
Sfakes lies on the natural boundary between the oHve and palm regions. These
two trees are not found here in such great numbers as they are in the north and
south respectively. But there are all the more fruit-trees of other varieties, such
as the almond, fig, apricot, peach, pistachio nut, and vine ; however, for some
years past the culture of the olive, more profitable than all the others, has been on
the increase. The zone of the oKve plantations is yearly extended by several
hundred yards, and if the same rate of progress continues, the Sfaksika will soon
absorb in their gardens all the isolated clumps of oKves which, having no recog-
nised masters, are known as the " Bey's trees." Their plantations will then reach
as far as El- Jem. Owing to the frequent rains, the fruit of the palms seldom
ripens thoroughly, hence is mostly used as food for the animals. The vegetable
most generally cultivated in the gardens of Sfakes is the fakus, or cucumber, a
word from which the name of the town is supposed to be derived. According to
Shaw, Sfakes is equivalent to the " City of Cucumbers."
Besides agriculture, the Sfaksika are also very actively engaged in industrial
and commercial pursuits. They do not despise any description of work, like the
Mussulmans of so many other cities. The market of Sfakes is as well supplied
with provisions as that of Tunis itself. The chief imports are wool, leather, and
European merchandise, taken in exchange for oil, fruits of all kinds — grapes, figs,
and almonds — sponges and dried fish, obtained from the Kerkenna fishermen. Of
late years English vessels also visit this port to take in cargoes of alfa grass,
which is gathered in the western plains and valleys inhabited by the peaceful
Metalit and Nefet Arab tribes. Unfortunately, Sfakes has no port in which to
receive vessels of any size. Hence ships of large draught are compelled to anchor
at a distance of nearly 2 miles from the shore. Smaller craft are able to approach
close to the town with the rising tide, which at ebb leaves them high and dry on
the mud. The harbour, however, is perfectly safe, being weU protected from the
east winds by shallows and the Kerkenna Archipelago.
This group has no centres of population beyond a few villages and hamlets
inhabited by fishermen. Hannibal and Marius found a temporary refuge in these
islands, which were used as places of exile under the Roman Grovernment, and
152 NOETH-WEST AFEICA.
until recently by that of the Bey. For some time past the natives of Kerkenna
have cultivated the vine, and freely drink of its fruit, notwithstanding the
precepts oi the Koran.
While the coastland route runs north- eastwards, skirting the Ras Kapudiah,
the most easterly promontory of Tunis, the route from Sfakes to Susa — that is, the
ancient Roman road — pursues a northerly direction across the territory of the
MetaUt tribe. Towards the middle of this route stood the two important towns of
Barai-us and Thysdrus, which have now become the henshir or " farm " of Ruga,
and the wretched \'illage of EI- Jem. The ruins of Bararus cover a space of about
3 miles in circumference, and comprise the remains of a theatre, a triumphal arch,
and other edifices, whilst Thysdrus still possesses one of the finest monuments in
the whole of Africa, the best-preserved amphitheatre which has been left us by
the ancient world, not even excepting that of Pompeii itself. AVhen this region
of Tunis, at present almost uninhabited, supported a numerous population, the
central position of Thysdrus rendered it one of the best sites for celebrating pubHc
feasts and games. From aU parts visitors flocked to its great amphitheatre, which
is supposed to have been, if not built, at least founded by Gordian the elder, in
return for having been proclaimed emperor in the city of Thysdrus. The amphi-
theatre was also the spot where the chiefs and delegates of the southern Tunisian
tribes met in 1881 and decided on a general rising against the French. Visible
for a distance of 6 miles from aU points of the compass, this vast pile towers above
a broad isolated eminence itself rising 615 feet above the surroxmding plain.
Looking at a distance like a mountain of stone, on a nearer approach it dis-
appears behind the thickets of tall Barbary fig-trees, between which the path
winds. According to the measurements of M. Pascal Coste, the CoKseum of
Thysdrus, one of the vastest of the Roman world, has a total length of 500 feet
in its longer axis, and 430 feet in its shorter axis, which is disposed nearly
due north and south. It was probably modelled after the Flavian amphitheatre in
Rome. The elliptical facade, formerly composed of sixty-eight arcades, supported
three stories ornamented with Corinthian columns, and presents in its general design
a great unity of style. But it is no longer complete. In 1710, after an Arab
insurrection, Mohammed, Bey of Tunis, blew up five arcades on the east side, and
since then the breach has been incessantly widened by the Metalit tribe of El-Jem,
who use the materials of the amphitheatre in the construction of their wretched
dwellings, besides selling them to the builders of the surrounding district. Inside,
the rows of seats have mostly disappeared, and their remains have fallen in confused
heaps on the arena. This havoc has been attributed to the transformation to
which it was subjected by the famous Kahina, ov " Priestess," who converted it
into a stronghold against the Arab invaders in the year 689. The traditions of
the neighbouring tribes, which commemorate the glories of the Priestess, although she
was hostile to the Arabs, relate that this heroine, probably a Jewess, like so many
other Berbers of that period, placed herself at the head of her fellow-countrjTnen
and of their Greek allies. Forced to shut herself up in the amphitheatre, which
from her took the name of Kasr-el-Kahina, she here sustained a siege of three
SFAKES — VIEW TAKEN IN THE LEONEC STREET.
SFATTRS.
153
years, A subterranean passage by which the arena was flooded for the naval
engagements of the Roman games is pointed out by the Arabs as the remains of a
secret gallery by which the garrison communicated with the coast and received
its supplies.
The town itself has left but few ruins, but excavations have brought to light
columns of vast size, and deep cisterns. According to M. Rouire, the nomads of
this region are gradually displacing the settled populations. Every village deserted
by its inhabitants is immediately seized by the native Beduins, who make it
their chief market and remove thither the shrines of their saints.
According to the Metalit people, the sandstone employed in the construction of
Fig. 45. — The Amphitheatee of El-Jem, viewed from the RirrNrED SroE.
the amphitheatre was obtained from the quarries of Bu-Rejid, situated on the sea-
shore, not far south of Mahdiya [Mahdia, Mehedia), the " City of the Mahdi,"
so called after its founder or restorer, Obeid Allah, in the year 912. Mahdij-a soon
became an important place, thanks to its strong miKtary position. The Christian
seafarers for a long time called it Afrika, regarding it as pre-eminently the
stronghold of the continent. Hence it was subjected to frequent attacks. In
1147 the Norman, Roger of Sicily, obtained possession of it, but it was retaken by
the Mohammedans thirteen years later. In 1557 Charles Y. captured the place
after several sanguinary assaults, and caused the ramparts to be dismantled.
From that time forward the walls have never been repaired and the breaches have
AFRICA I. c;;
154 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
ffrown wider. The fort, which defended the narrow isthmus connecting the
peninsula with the mainland, is now a mere ruin. The two inlets are said to have
been formerly imited by a canal. The ancient port, excavated by human hands,
like those of TJtica and Carthage, is now choked with rubbish, and the vessels
which come to take in cargoes of oil, fruits, and sponges are obliged to anchor in
the roadstead. A foreign colony, composed, as in all the other coastland towns, of
Maltese, Italians, and Frenchmen, has been estabKshed at Mahdiya, and is engaged
in the export trade and the sardine fishery. Over two hundred boats are now
, occasionally crowded in the harbour. From May to July the sea on this coast
teems with fish to such an extent that each boat takes on an average from two to
three himdred kilogrammes of sardines in a single night. In order to fish in the
day, the native sailors spread mats of alfa grass on the water, beneath the shadow
of wliich the fish flock in shoals. The fishermen then cautiously approach and cast
their nets round the space covered by the mats and the fish concealed beneath
them.
To the south-west, in a well-cultivated district, some distance from the sea, stands
the %'illage of Kiir-cs-Srf, which is a larger place than Mahdiya. At this port is
shipped nearly all the produce exported by the merchants of the ancient " Afrika."
A few miles west of Mahdiya, covering a space of several square miles, stands
an ancient necropolis, whose tombs, hollowed out of the rock, have been compared
by M. Renan to those of Arad in Syria ; nor can there be any doubt that a Phoe-
nician town once stood on this spot. The surroxmding region is one of those in
which ruined cities are found crowded in the closest proximity together. Some twt»
miles to the south the Henshir Selekfa occupies the site of Si/Ikcfum, and farther
on, near the Ras Kapudiah, the Caput Yada of the Romans, a borj now stands
where was formerly the Byzantine city of Jiistinianopolis. To the north, on the
promontory of Ras Dimas, where there is a port protected by the remains of a jetty,
ancient stone ramparts, cisterns, and the elliptical wall of an amphitheatre, whose
arena is now cultivated, indicate, near Bokalta, the site of the Carthaginian city of
T/iajmis, celebrated for the victory which Caesar here gained over Scipio and King
Juba.
Beyond this point, on that part of the coast which faces the Kuriatein Islands,
the villages of Tehidha and Moknin, surrounded by secular olive-trees, also occupy
the sites of ancient cities. The coastland route then passes on to Lcmta, a village
which has succeeded to Leptis Minor, or "Little Leptis," so called in contra-
distinction to the " Great Leptis " of Tripoli. Still, Leptis Minor was once a con-
siderable city : its rmns stretch along the sea-shore for nearly three miles, and
here are still to be seen remains of an aqueduct, an amphitheatre, quays, and
jetties. The ancient port is now a mere wed, known as the Wed-es-Sak, or
" Valley of the Market." The most populous town of this district at present is
Jemal, built farther inland, to the south-west of Lemta.
MonaJiiif, or Mistir, by its name recalls, perhaps, what was once a Christian
monastery ; but it had also been a Carthaginian and Roman town, probably
Ruspina, i.e. " the Head of the Promontory." Like Sfakes, it is surrounded by an
SFAKES.
155
embattled wall flanked with towers ; above tbe ramparts appear the domes and
minarets of numerous mosques, surrounded by a magnificent olive grove. It was
also till recently peopled by Mussulman fanatics, who would not tolerate any other
religion in their town but their own ; but, being now visited by a regular service
Fig. 46. — MATmiYA.
Scale 1 : 240,000.
I0°5*'
E . of Greenwich
Uepttis.
0to32
Feet.
32 to 80
Feet.
80 Feet and
upwards.
-. 6 Miles.
of Steamboats, its colony of Europeans is slowly increasing. It is the cleanest and
best regulated town in the whole of Tunis.
Not far from the promontory, of which Monastir occupies the western angle, is
a small group of islands, one of which is pierced with some fifty artificial grottoes,
156
NOETH-WEST APRICA.
probably of PhcDnician origin. They recently served as places of shelter to the
tunnv-fishers, and have occasionally been used as places for keeping sailors and
travellors in quarantine. Farther east, the group of Kuriatein Islands, which is
connected witli Cape Dimas by a submarine bank, is, according to Tissot, the
remnant of a considerable tract of land, which was still in existence at the Punic
period; however, the documents on which this hypothesis is founded are not
detinite enough to lend much value to the statement.
SiisA, Kairwan.
Susa, the principal city of the Tunisian Sahel, is considered to be the second
town of Tunis, if not for the number of its inhabitants, being in this respect sur-
Fig. 47. — MONASTIR AND SuSA.
Scale 1 : 320,000.
Depths.
Oto32
Feet.
82 to 80
Feet.
80 to 160
Feet.
160 Foet and
upwards.
6 Miles.
passed by Sfakes, at least for its strategical importance. A large part of the
surrounding territory is under cultivation, and nearly all the natives dwell in fixed
abodes. Susa, which is of Phoenician origin, is the port of Kairwan, the principal
city and military centre of the interior, and was itself, at one time, also a capital
city. Under the name of Iladrumetum, it was in the time of the Romans the chief
town of the province of Byzacenao, and its wealth and military position exposed it
SUSA.
157
to frequent attacks from foreign invaders. Vandals, Arabs, Spaniards, and French
successively assaulted, destroyed, or bombarded it, and the ruins of different periods
have thus been piled up in successive heaps. Blocks, and other remains, covered
with carvings and inscriptions, have been used in building modern houses ; but there
are no traces to be found of the great edifices, such as the amphitheatre spoken of
by the Arab authors of the Middle Ages. The Hajar Maklubah, or " Overturned
Stone," once a magnificent temple, is now a mere heap of rubbish, while the
"cothon," or circular port of the Carthaginians, which was similar to those of
Carthage and Utica, can be recognised only by the remains of its two extreme.
Fig. 48. — Kate-wan.
Scale 1 : 20,000.
lovcfue of^ SidI Okba
?jeenwict7_
IOV30-__J
. 550 Yards.
sluice-gates — ^huge blocks of masonrj' which at a distance look like rocks. The greater
part of these works has been pulled down and turned into an esplanade. As in
nearly all the ancient towns of Timis, the cisterns, more precious than all other
structures, have been always either kept up or repaired under every change of
Government. The necropoli of various periods form an almost complete circle
round the town. The most ancient, in which sepulchral chambers are still to be
seen hollowed out of the soft limestone, are similar in the internal arrangements of
their galleries to the caves used as tombs in Phoenicia and Palestine. The city was
supplied with water by a Roman cistern.
158
NORTH- W^EST ATRICA.
Like other to\nis of Eastern Tunis, modern Susa is surrounded by huge quadri-
lateral ramparts, flanked with towers, and commanded at one of its angles by a
kasbah. Altogether, the city is about one mile in circumference ; but outside the
enclosure, comprising a network of winding streets, is a newly opened quarter in
the north-east, near the beach, which, however, lacks the picturesque appearance of
the old town. Here are the depots of the Jewish and European merchants, with
their reservoirs of oil, which is exported to Marseilles for the manufacture of soap.
Olive-trees can be counted by the million in the Sahel of Susa, and the planta-
tions could even be still farther increased, although in some places the sand is
allowed to encroach on the cultivated districts. Till recently, the casks of oil
Fiff. 49. — Kabbah of Susa.
.rhich the Susa merchants supplied to the vessels in the roadstead were floated, and
towed down by flat boats in long convoys. On the return voyage the casks were
thrown overboard, washed ashore by the surf, and recovered by their owners.
Now, however, a small jetty receives the travellers and merchandise landed from
the boats or rafts. Sicilian sloops fish for sardines off the coast of Susa, and the
produce, as abundant as in the waters of Mahdiya, is exported to Greece and
Dalmatia.
Italians and Maltese, always very nimierous at Susa, till recently constituted nearly
all the European population of the town ; but the majority of the non-Mussul-
mans were Jews, who numbered some two thousand, and who enjoyed a monopoly
of the inland trade. Hundreds of JiTcgroes, the sons of former slaves, carry on the
KAIEWAN. 159
trades of masons, joiners, and house painters. Since the French occupation, former
Algerian riflemen, Kabyles and Arabs, have also come to seek their fortunes at
Susa, where, thanks to their knowledge of French, they readily find emplojTnent
as interpreters and foremen. The Susa Mussulmans, amongst M'hom fair types
with blue eyes are by no means rare, vehemently declare that they are not Arabs,
but natives of Susa.
Amongst the flourishing towns of the environs there are some which contain,
in their scattered quarters, a population equal or but slightly inferior to that of
Susa itself. One of these places is Kelaa Kebira, some 8 miles to the north-
west ; another is Msaken, about 6 miles to the south-west, and surrounded by a
dense forest of olives. This latter was, till quite recently, a holy place, which Jews
and Christians were forbidden to enter.
A tramway on the Decauville system, laid over rugged wastes, hills, valleys and
sebkhas, connects the shores of Susa with Kaincan, the religious capital of Tunis,
which stands on a terrace commanding an extensive view of a slightly undulated
treeless district. Founded by the conqueror Okbah in the year 671, at the period
of the first Arab invasion of Maghreb, the city of the " Double Victory " has
retained a great prestige in the ej'es of the Mussulmans, and pilgrimages made to
the pretended tomb of its founder are considered to have a special efiicacy in
purifying the souls of the Faithfiil. Kairwan is one of the four " Gates of Para-
dise," and " seven days' stay at Kairwan are equivalent to one day at Mecca,"
entitling the pilgrim to be called a haji. The legend relates that, before founding
the town, Sidi-el- Okbah proclaimed to all the beasts of the field that a sacred city
was about to rise on this spot, and for three days the lions, panthers, wild boars,
and other wild animals, both great and small, quitted the place in troops, leaving it
free to the followers of the Prophet. The legend also says that impure men cannot
live in this holy city, the spirits of the blessed would destroy them if they ventured
near the mosques. The Jews being forbidden to reside in the town, their hara, or
quarter, stood at a distance of over a mile from the walls. A certain number of
Christians, however, protected by a letter from the Bey, were admitted into
Kairwan and politely received by the sheikhs, but they were never allowed to enter
the sacred edifices. While all the cities of the Tunisian coast had been successively
visited by victorious foreign armies, Kairwan was captured for the first time in
1881 by the French. On this occasion, however, the town threw open its gates
without attempting a useless resistance. Since then it has become the capital of a
military government, and its ramparts, commanded by a kasbah, have been com-
pleted by new bastions. Christians now freely enter its mosques.
Of aU Tunisian cities, Kairwan, surroimded by ruins, barren tracts, and saline
depressions, is one of those which nature has favoured the least ; it has neither
running waters nor springs, all the water coming from cisterns, some of which are
flushed at the period of continuous rains by the Wed Merg-el-Lil, whose current
becomes clearer from basin to basin. The city has no shady gardens, being sur-
rounded by more cemeteries than cultivated lands. Thanks to its central position,
it nevertheless presents at first sight an imposing and even pleasing appearance.
160
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
Viewed from afar, it commands the surrounding space with its lofty walls, the
numerous cupolas of its mosques, and the superb three-storied minaret which stands
north-east of the town, above the mosque of Sidi-Okbah. Tunis itself does not
boast of such wealthy mosques and convents as this holy city, which possesses over
eio-hty of these religious edifices. Amongst them is the Jemaa-el-Kebir, or " Great
Mosque," which has no less than seventeen double parallel naves, and more than
400 columns of onyx, porphyry, marble, and other precious materials. Still more
famous than the Great Mosque is that of the " Companion," so called because it
■ contains, in a recess ornamented with marvellous arabesques, the tomb of a com-
■piir. 50. — Kaibwax : The Mosqtte of the S-words.
panion of Mohammed, his barber, and also a still more precious relic — three hairs
from the Prophet's board.
The most powerful brothcrhoo^ls at Kairwan are those of the Aissawa, the
Tijaniya, and the Ghilaniya. Like so many other " holy places," Kairwan is also
one of the most corrupt, and the class of the Tunisian dancing girls is mainly
recruited from this city of mosques and religious confraternities. The inhabitants
of the city of Olcbah glory in living, as parasites, at the expense of the Faithful ;
they have consequently greatly degenerated, and are mostly afflicted by zymotic
diseases. Cancer, scrofula, and infirmities of every description give the people a
KASRIN. 561
repulsive appearance ; they have no strength for work, just as they had no energy
to resist the French. However, the town has a few industries, more especiaUy
manufactories of embroidered saddles, chased copper vases, and attar of roses ; its
bazaars are amongst the best stocked in Tunis. But provisions of all kinds have
to be brought from a great distance ; vegetables and cereals being imported from
Hammamet, some 60 miles distant.
There are no other towns in the district of Kairwan, and all that remains of the
ancient Sahra, which stood about a mile to the south, are two pink columns, which
" shed blood " under the saws of the workmen. The traveller passes, without transi-
tion, from the scenes of city to those of rural life. All the surrounding peoples'
are partially or completely nomads, either of Arab or Berber stock. Amongst the
latter is the powerful Zlas tribe, south and west of Kairwan, who are said to number
thirty thousand, and who occupy the western suburb of that place.
The Susa Arabs live to the east, around the depressions in which are collected
the waters of the Sidi-el-Hani sebkha, whence they extract large quantities of salt.
This is piled up in great heaps, on the top of which they burn brushwood, in
order by the fusion of the upper layers to form a solid crust, which prevents the
salt from being dissolved by the rains. To the north-west are the camping-grounds
of the Ulad Yahiya, and to the west, near the sources of the rivers falling into lake
Kelbia, those of the Major tribe.
The region now traversed by these semi- Arab Berber nomads is one of those
most densely inhabited by settled communities some two thousand years ago. The
upper basin of the Wed-el-Fekka, a watercourse which changes its name at each
successive confluence, lies in a district of Timis where Roman remains occur in the
greatest abundance. The huge cities and their sumptuous monuments have every-
where left ruins which, throughout eastern Maghreb, are called henshirs, a term
equally applied to all lands under cultivation. Kasrin, the ancient ScyUiwn, whose
remains cover several hills, still preserves a three- storied mausoleum with Corinthian
pilasters, besides a triumphal arch and many other buildings, which have not been
so well preserved. Near this spot the railway from Cabes to Tebessa will pass
under two ancient triumphal arches.
East of Kasrin the Sbeitla henshir, commanded by the Jebel of the same name,
and traversed by the "Wed Menasser, an affluent of the Fekka, has also preserved
some magnificent monuments of the Roman period. When M. Guerin visited this
henshir it was inhabited by a soKtary priest, who, to the traveller's surprise, proved
t^be a Frenchman ! Several thermal springs which rise in a dried-up bed near
Sbeitla, are sufficiently copious to form a clear streamlet, as large in volume as the
springs of Zaghwan. The water yielded by it suffices for a considerable population,
and everything, in fact, tends to prove that this now deserted region was very
populous some two or three thousand years ago. The ancient Buffetula, that is, in
Carthaginian, " the town of the SufEetes," was an important city and the scat of the
government of the province till the Arab invasions. The temples, colonnades,
triumphal arches, ramparts, towers, and tombs with inscriptions have enabled
archaeologists to discover the ground-plan of the town. An imposing temple, with
162 NORTH-WEST AFEICA.
two projecting wings surrounded by elegant columns, croons a neighbouring
eminence. The space before the triple sanctuary was approached through a
triumphal arch ornamented, like the temple, with beautiful sculptures, similar to
the decorations of the temples of Baalbek. The whole of this region, covered with
Ixoman ruins, appears to have been a vast forest of olives ; near each building are
also still visible cisterns and fortalices, whither the settlers took refuge at any
sudden alarm. At the present time this olive country, over which roam the
Frashish tribe, yields no other produce except the wool of its sheep, which, how-
ever, is the most valued in all Tunis.
North of Susa the coast route, confined between the lagoons and the sea,
traverses the -sillage of Hergla^ which now shows no traces of the Roman period,
except in its ancient name of Horrea Coelia, and some shapeless ruins. The surface
of a neighbouring plain is covered wath dolmens for a space of about one square
mile. Beyond this spot, near the peak of Taknina, on which stands the village
of the same name, lies the farm of Dar-el-Bey, or " the Bey's Palace," centre of
the vast Enfida domain belonging to the Ulad-Said tribe, which was so long
disputed by rival speculating companies, backed up by their respective govern-
ments. The annexation of Tunis to France terminated the contest to the advantage
of a society from Marseilles, to which other domains have also been conceded.
This inmiense tract, which although not yet surveyed, can scarcely comprise
less than 300,000 acres, includes lands of a very varied nature, some arid, others
fertile, but on the whole constituting one of the most favoured regions of Tunis.
Tinder the Roman government, this portion of Byzacense is said to have contained
no less than seventeen towns, whose ruins are still met scattered amid the surround-
ing brushwood. At present not more than three hamlets, peopled with Berber
peasantry, occupy the crests of the hills, and a Maltese \dllage has been recently
established 6 miles to the north of Dar-el-Bey. Certain parts of this region
are planted with olive groves stretching away beyond the horizon ; and other
tracts, abundantly watered, might be utilised as gardens. Extensive plains are here
covered with cereals ; forests of pines and thuya clothe the slopes of Mount
Zaghwan, and the pasture lands are pre-eminently fitted for sheep-breeding. The
greatest efforts have recently been made to promote this industry, by introducing
Algerian stock, and also to increase the vine plantations ; but unfortunately this
work of improvement has its drawbacks, due to the interference of managers and
foreign capitalists, which have not failed to arise in this region of Tunis as well as
in all the other latifumlia. The interest exacted by money-lenders, the expenses
of commission, the employment of useless middlemen, the dcarncss of labour, and
the hostility of the injured natives, always ruin enterprises of this description, or
at least prevent them from producing in a proportion equal to that of small
properties cultivated by the owner himself. To prevent the failure of their specu-
lation, the grantees of the Enfida estate have been obliged to give up personally
directing the work of cultivation; like the Arab suzerains, they content themselves
with letting their lands to the surrounding peasants and shepherds. The rent of
these lands is little more than Is. 8d. per acre, a deduction being made for tracts
EXPIDA— SBEITLA. 168
covered witli scrub. The work, which had been hailed as the commencement of a
'4 hi
',,^'^''-'
l*»
■-'mm
J.tr }
new era in the civilisation of Tunis, is now confined to signing leases and collecting
the rent. Enfida is very rich in mineral and thermal springs.
164
NOETH-WEST AFEIOA.
The little village of Hammamet, called " the City of Pigeons " on account of
the innumerable ring-doves which nest in the rocks of the neighbouring moun-
tains, has o-iven its name to the broad gulf between the Cape Bon peninsula and
Monastir Point. It owes this honour neither to its antiquity, since it was founded
Fi^. 52. — SusA AND Enfeda.
Scale 1 : 330,000.
i, '■■•• 'iil--\
I KalaaK^cira
L . of breenwich
lO'io
in-^o*
0to82
Feet.
Depths.
32 to 80
Feet.
80 Feet and
upwards.
C Miles.
only in the fifteenth century, nor to its wealth, for it has but a small population,
while the surrounding district is badly cultivated, but rather to the effect produced
by its white walls flanked with square towers partly built into the masonry, and
to its position, exactly at the southern extremity of the route which traverses the
NABEL— KELIBIA. 166
neck of the north-eastern peninsula of Tunis. These advantages have endowed it
with a certain strategical importance, and made it an indispensable station for
traders and travellers. At this point travellers coming from Tunis reach the
shores of the eastern sea, and they have naturally named the bay after the place
where the inland route terminates.
But industrial and commercial life has moved farther east to the town of
Nahel, which dates from pre-Arab times, as is indicated by its slightly modified
Greek name of Neapolis. Notwithstanding this designation of "JN'ew Town," it is
a place of vast antiquity. In the ruins of Nahel-el-KecUm, or " Old Nabel," are
still found traces of Carthaginian structures, and the Periplus of Scylax already
mentions this African " Naples." The soil of the plain, where a " new town "
constantly sprang up on the ruins of its predecessor, is strewn with potsherds and
broken vases, and at the present time numerous workshops are still sm-rounded
with broken utensils, similar to those rejected by the old potters of Neapolis,
showing that the local industry has undergone no change for the last two thousand
years. From Nabel more especially come the waterbottles, pitchers, jars, flower-
pots, perfume-vases, and terra-cotta lamps which are sold in the markets of Tunis,
and which even find their way to Algeria and TripoH. Nabel also manuiactures
textile fabrics, while the flowers of its gardens are used in the preparation of
essences.
Of late years Nabel has acquired a certain reputation as a " winter retreat "
for consumptive patients. Well protected from the northern winds by the hills
of the north-eastern peninsula, it faces the Gulf of HammamSt, which is seldom
tempest-tossed like the waters on the northern side of the headland. Hence the
streets are seldom exposed to the furious blasts which raise clouds of dust on the
highroads of Tunis. North of Hammamet, the Yandal kings had a " Paradise ; "
but where once stood those magnificent pleasure grounds, scarcely a tree is now
to be seen. The sand daily encroaches more and more upon the surrounding
plantations and cemeteries.
One of the most populous regions of Tunis is the Dakhelat-el-Mahuin, as the
peninsula terminating the Ras Addar is called. Small towns and large callages
surrounded by gardens, orchards, and oHve groves, follow in succession along the
high cliffs, at some distance from the eastern coast. The shore route traverses
Beni-Khriar, Kurba, Kurshin, Me?izel-Temin, and Kelihia, this latter the successor
of the ancient Clypcea, in Greek Aspis, so called from the shield- shaped hiU on
which stood the acropolis. Situated near a cape, at the point where the coast
curves to the south-west, thus offering a refuge for vessels against the north winds,
Kelibia was always of some maritime importance, and, although its two ports are
now choked up, small craft overtaken by tempests still seek shelter under its walls.
The north side of the peninsula washed by the waters of the Gulf of Tunis is less
densely peopled than the opposite side, owing to the narro\\Tiess of the cultivable
zone comprised between the hills and the sea. SoUman, and the menzel or
" station " called Menzel- Bn-Zalf a, the largest centres of population, are situated in
the northern part of the plain which connects the shores of the Gulf of Tunis
166 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
with those of the Gulf of Hammamet. The inhabitants of Soliman are of Anda-
lusian origin, like those of several other towns of Dakhelat-el-Mahuin, and,
according to Grenville Temple, many still retain the names of Spanish families.
The plague of 1819 swept away more than two-thirds of the population of
Soliman.
The seven thermal springs of Hammam Kurbes (Gorbus), whose temperature
(from 77° to 138° F.) is higher than any others in Tunis, rise on the coast not
far from the promontory called Ras Fortas, exactly opposite Cape Carthage.
About a dozen other boiling springs, visible from afar by the columns of steam
arising from them, also bubble up from the sea not far from the shore. On the
beach forming the extreme concave curve of the gulf, at the base of the escarp-
ments of the " Two-horned " Mountain, flow other hot springs (104° F.), those of
Hammam Lif or Hammam-el-Enf, which are used in an ancient palace of the Bey,
soon to be replaced by a modern establishment, replete with every luxury and
comfort. Autumn is more especially the season in which strangers, chiefly Jews,
visit these waters. Hamman Lif is already included in the extensive municipal
jurisdiction of Tunis. Both places will ere long be connected by a railway, which
is to be continued to Hammamet, and a small port is soon to be constructed at
Hammam Lif. The Mountain of the Two Horns contains beds of argentiferous
lead, which are not being worked ; but the Jebel Ressas, or " Mountain of Lead,"
which rises a little farther south, is being honeycombed by hundreds of miners,
nearly all of whom are Italians.
The basin of the Wed Melian discharges into the Gulf of Tunis near Bades,
an ancient village which faces Carthage from the top of the hill on which it stands.
Zaghwan, the only town in this basin, may, like Hammam Lif, also be considered
as a dependency of the neighbouring capital. Situated directly south of Tunis,
between the heights of 530 and 780 feet, Zaghwan is the health-resort of the
Tunisians, thanks to its pure air, its running waters, gardens, and groves of trees,
amongst which are many European species. From this place the capital obtains its
supply of water. In the near future it will become the outpost of Timis, from a
strategical and commercial point of view, by means of a railway which will com-
mand the towns of the east and south, such as Susa, Kairwan, and Gafsa. The newly
opened routes have already transformed Zaghwan into a pro\asioning station and a
centre of trajEc. A weU-preserved triumphal arch and some inscriptions prove
that this town had been occupied by the Romans.
At the time of the immigration of the Andalusian Moors, a colony of these
fugitives was established at Zaghwan, which is stiU peopled by the descendants of
these industrious artisans ; they are more especially engaged in cultivating the
gardens, dyeing caps, or shcshias, and dressing skins. The water of Zaghwan is said
to have peculiar properties for contracting tissues and preparing them to take the
colours ; hence the caps of Tunis are preferred throughout the Levant to those of
Franco and other countries. From the summits of the ruffffcd moimtain which
commands Zaghwan, a splendid view can be had over the whole of north-eastern
Tunis, from the coast of Susa to the headlands of Carthage. On one of the
ZAGHWAN.
1G7
Fig. 63. — Aqtteducts of Caethagb.
Scale 1 : 733,000.
advanced spurs of tliis eminence, MM. Rebatel and Tirant have discovered a
prehistoric necropoKs, comprising nearly three hundred dolmens, all disposed in
the direction from east to west. In a defile near Mount Zaghwan is the pass of the
"Saw," in which the mercen-
aries were massacred at the
close of that atrocious war
which threatened the existence
of Carthage.
Imposing or pleasant views
follow in succession along the
skirts of this mountainous
mass ; but the most charming
prospect is presented by the
district which surrounds the
nymphaeum of the great foun-
tain whence the aqueduct of
Carthage drew its chief sup-
ply. This temple, standing on
a terrace over a mile south of
Zaghwan, and half-way up the
mountain's side, is built on
the solid rock, and is finished
with peristyles, steps, and
basins, whose dazzling white-
ness contrasts vividly with the
green trees and the various
colours of the boulders scat-
tered over the slope of the
mountain.
The aqueduct of Zaghwan
is connected with that of Jebel
Jughar, which carries a less
copious stream, and the two
currents unite in the now re-
stored Roman aqueduct, which
stretches northwards in the
direction of Tunis and Goletta
for a total distance, including
its branches, of 80 miles.
The subterranean parts of the aqueduct have been to a large extent utilised for the
new canal, but wherever the depressions of the ground were crossed by long rows
of arcades, the arches have been replaced by undergroimd pipes disposed on the
principle of the siphon. South of the passage of the Wed Melian, a section of
the ancient aqueduct can be followed uninterruptedly for more than a mile, some
Oto32
Feet.
Deptlis.
32 to 80
Feet.
80 Feet and
upwards.
12 Miles.
168 NORTH-WEST APRICA.
>
of its arcades risino- to over 80 feet in height ; but almost everywhere the ruins
of the aqueduct present little more than short detached fragments, utilised as
quarries by the local builders, and stripped of their angular stone facing. The
very eno-ineers who repaired the aqueduct have destroyed the finest fragment
that still remained of the monument raised by Adrian and Septimius Severus :
they have pulled down the bridge over the Wed Melian to form the foundations
of their modem aqueduct, which it would have been easy to have carried in
another direction without increase of expenditure.
The remains of the aqueduct, as well as those of the ancient Roman city of
Udna {JJdina), have been used to build the walls of farms, the huts, and now
abandoned palaces of Mohammedia. Huge megaliths are scattered around the
ruins of Udina, and the cisterns have been converted into dwellings and refuges for
cattle. The mean discharge of the springs still utilised was in 1885, 175,000 cubic
feet daily, and this quantity will soon be increased one-half by enlarging the
area of supply. When these works are completed it is expected that the greatest
daily discharge will be 425,000 cubic feet, the mean ranging from 250,000 to
275,000 cubic feet.
Tunis.
Tunis, capital of the Regency and one of the largest cities of the continent,
was second to Cairo alone in population at the beginning of this century. Now,
however, it is surpassed by Alexandria, but not by Algiers, even if the total
population within and without the ramparts be taken into consideration. Although
more advantageously situated in many respects than the capital of Algeria, it has
been, if not outstripped, at least equalled, in consequence of the poKtical, military,
administrative, and economical centralisation which more than half a century of
French occupation has effected in the town of Algiers. Viewed from a general
geographical standpoint, Tunis still possesses a few of those great advantages which
Carthage enjoyed ; it is situated near the projecting angle of the Maghreb, between
the two basins of the Mediterranean, and lies also near the mouth of the great
valley of the river Mcjerda, which with its numerous ramifications penetrates into
the heart of the Mauritanian mountains and plateaux. Moreover, it has a very
healthy cHmate, thanks to the free circulation of the north winds. Some three
thousand years ago, or even at the possibly still more remote period of its founda-
tion, certain local features in the relief of the land, offering commercial advantages
and facilitating its defence against attack, must necessarily have had a decided
influence in the choice of this site for a new Phoenician settlement. At this point
a chain of low limestone hills cuts off the great plain facing westwards in the
direction of the Mejerda; and this strategical position is all the stronger, that both
sides of the rocky ridge are enclosed by vast lacustrine depressions. These are the
Sobkha-el-Seljum to the south-west, which increases and decreases with the rainy
and dry seasons, and the Bahira, or "Little Sea," to the north-east, whose level
never changes, thanks to the " channel " connecting this lagoon with the Mediter-
TUNIS. 169
ranean. Thus tlie town of the Tmiisian isthmus was almost impregnable on two
of its sides, while it also commanded the valley which connected the valleys of the
Mejerda and the Wed Melian. Moreover " the Little Sea," although not very
deep, was sufficiently so to receive vessels of light draught. Sheltered from rough
weather, they could safely discharge their cargoes on the beach of Tunis. At the
same time, certain conditions which were at one time favourable have, during the
course of centuries, become the reverse. The low-lying lagoon of the Bahira, into
which our modern vessels of heavy tonnage cannot penetrate, has changed into
a vast open di'ain flooded with foul stagnant water. Thus Timis now enjoys but a
small share of the advantages usually associated with a maritime situation ; it has
become an inland town, endeavouring, by an artificial port, to regain the privileges
with which nature had formerly endowed it.
Probably of an origin anterior to Carthage, Tunis, or Tunes, had its periods of
great prosperity. When mention is made of it for the first time, it had already
been eclipsed by its powerful neighbour, Carthage ; but, after the destruction of its
rival, Tunis became for a short time the most populous city of that region. Carthage,
however, was soon rebuilt by the Romans, and again took its place as mistress of
the country.
At the end of the seventh century of the vulgar era, Carthage, again overthrown,
ceased to exist, and since that period Tunis, one of the centres of the Mussulman
power, has remained the capital, in spite of constant civil dissensions and foreign
wars. Throughout a period of twelve centuries it once alone fell into the hands of
the Christians. In 1270 Louis IX. succeeded only in gaining possession of the
"castle" of Carthage, dying on his bed of ashes before Abu Mohammed, King
of Tunis, was forced to sue for peace. But in 1535 Charles Y., assisted by
twenty thousand slaves, who had revolted against Kheir-ed-Din, entered Tunis,
which he gave to a vassal prince, at the same time erecting the fort of Goletta, so
as to command the communications between the capital and the sea. But before
the year had drawn to a close it was retaken by Kheir-ed-Din, and from that time
it remained under the government of beys, vassals of the Turk, till 1881, when the
official suzerainty ceased to belong to the Sublime Porte, and passed into the hands
of the French. Before the Turkish rule, Tunis, "the white, the odorous, the
flowery, the bride of the west," was looked upon by the Mussulman world as a city
without equal. It was the " rendezvous of travellers from the east and the west,
and it contained all the advantages that man could desire. Whatsoever the whim
of man might fancy could be obtained in Tunis. Its power and glory placed it as
a sovereign above its rivals, the capitals of the east and west." Tunis might well
have said, " I am the ladder of the temple, by which the faithful mount up to
heaven." At the present day Tunis is still considered by aU the North African
Mussulmans, except those of Egypt and Marocco, the city of good taste, literature,
and fashion — in short, a kind of African Paris.
Covering a superficial area of over one square mile, and yearly increasing in
size, Tunis slopes eastwards on the gentle incline of the hills commanding the
western bank of the Bahira. It extends about a mile and a half from north to
AFRICA I. »
170 NOETH-WEST AFEICA.
south, ■with a mean breadth from east to west of over half a mile. The central
quarter, which the people still designate as Medina, the " Town," in a pre-eminent
sense, is of an irregular oval shape, its long axis running due north and south
throughout nearly the whole of its circumference ; it is still surrounded by an
ancient wall connected with the fortifications of the kasbah. The northern suburb
of Bab-es-Suika and the southern quarter of Bab-el-Jezira (Bab-ez-Zirah) are also
surrounded by an enclosure consisting of a broken line of ramparts, which, from
the quadrilateral kasbah standing on the hill, stretches from bastion to bastion; but
to the east — that is, on the side of the Bahira — these walls have disappeared, yielding
as it were to the pressure of the population, which overflows its limits, and quite a
new quarter has sprung up along both sides of the central avenue. The Marina,
as this quarter is called, runs in the direction of the platform, skirted by jetties,
where begins the navigable channel of the lagoon. Since the first years of this
century, the border zone of the Bahira has increased by at least 2,330 feet; it daily
grows larger, thanks to the alluvia brought down by the drains, and excavations
made in the lands covered with buildings. The low level of the soil renders this
" New Timis " the most unhealthy quarter of the town ; but this place, where
stand the two railway stations and the port, and where one day will rise the town
hall, the law courts, theatre, and exchange, has the advantage of presenting to
the builders an unlimited space, and already long rectilinear perspectives have been
developed at right angles between the white houses of the European quarter.
This perspective will no doubt be one day prolonged across the network of the
thirteen hundred streets of the old town.
In the vicinity of the kasbah the work of demolition has already begun, leaving
open avenues between the public monuments. The circular boulevard, which is now
being made round the " Medina," properly so called, is the forerunner of a sj^stem
of thoroughfares planned in the European style. As in so many other towns, this
change, it is to be feared, will be accomplished in a somewhat reckless fashion. Few
of the picturesque ]\Ioorish houses will gain the benefits of fresh air, light, and
comfort, without sacrificing their characteristic features, such as arcades and
arabesques, and thus becoming mere formless blocks of stone. However, the
exquisite art of the house decorator has not yet been quite lost, and it would be
deplorable to allow it to perish.
The streets of Old Tunis are naturally much more picturesque and less formal
than the regular thoroughfares of the European quarter. None of them are laid
down on straight lines, but everj^where present gables, angles, projections and
curves, radiating in all directions. The streets are crossed overhead by roofed
arches of various heights, some mere arcades uniting two houses facing each other,
others bearing two or three stages on their interlaced groinings. Some of these
arches are long enough to form veritable galleries, like those of the Berber towns
in the oases. Columns of marble, brought from Carthage, support these arcades,
or else enframe the doors of the houses with their endlessly varied capitals. "Wild
flowers grow in the crevices of the arches, while trees have sprung up at the
comers of the streets, overshadowing some shop, or the seats of a restaurant.
TUNIS. 171
Towards tlie upper end of the town, below the kasbah and the Dar-el-Bey, or
" Bey's Palace," are the labyrinthine ramifications of the " Suks," each street of
which, vaulted or surmounted by woodwork, is inhabited by people of the same
trade, such as saddlers, Hnen-drapers, coppersmiths, jewellers, and perfumers. In
many an alley the workshop adjoins the booth where the wares are exposed for sale;
the linen is woven, the wool carded, the sheshias dyed, the copper hammered, in full
view of the purchasers and passers-by. Here and there is seen a flight of stairs,
and through a haK-open door a glimpse can be had of an almost deserted court,
encircled by arcades — a religious school it may be, or a mosque, or some other
tranquil retreat in the midst of the surrounding turmoil. Few animals except some
asses are to be seen in the quarter of the bazaars ; but in the suburbs the streets
leading to the gates of the town are blocked with horses, mules, and camels, through
which the carriages, jolting over the stones and ruts, make their way with
difficulty.
The types of different nationalities predominate according to their respective
quarters. In the upper town live the Timisians, properly so called, with whom
are intermingled, in the suburb of Bab-es-Suika, the descendants of the Andalusian
Moors. Proud of their ancient reputation as the leaders of fashion in Mauritania,
the elegant Tunisians excel in the choice of the stuffs of which are made their
garments, in which bright hues always predominate. The haik, light blue, delicate
pink, peach, or cream-coloured, flows in graceful folds over the shoulders. But
the women, amongst whom stoutness is greatly admired, contrast unfavourably with
the men as regards the style of their costumes. In spite of the beauty of the striped
silks, it is difficult to suppress a feeling of disgust at the sight of those ungainly
figures swaying heavily in their broad and short blouses, showing the narro-w
drawers and the loose stockings. The black veil, with nothing but a slit for the
eyes, gives them at a distance the appearance of negresses, who, however, have at
least the redeeming features of a glossy skin and white teeth.
Side by side of the richly dressed Moors are the more numerous poor Mussul-
mans, clothed with their simple burnous of grey wool or with coarse brown caped
cloaks embroidered in white. It is only by long observation that amongst aU these
tj-pes the stranger is able to identify the Jarabas, or merchants from the island of
Jerba, the Suafas or immigrants from Suf, the Mzabites, the northern Algerians,
and the natives of Marocco, who have become very numerous since the arrival of
the French.
The Jews, who are grouped together more especially in the eastern paxt of the
Bab-es-Suika quarter, are divided into two classes, according to their origin.
The Italian Jews, or " Grana," that is to say, the people of Gurna, or Leghorn,
wear the European costume, whilst the others are dressed very similarly to the
Moors ; their women, however, who are as stout as the Moorish ladies, go unveiled,
and wear a gold- embroidered peaked bonnet. The Maltese, who have given their
name to one of the busiest streets of the city, form, both by their language and
customs, the link between the Arabs and Sicilians, who represent a large portion of
the local Italian proletariat. The Tuscans are now represented only by the Jews,
172 NOETH-^^ST AFEICA.
althouo-h Leghorn formerly disputed \vith Marseilles for tlie commercial supremacy
in Timis, at a time when the whole of the Mediterranean was even known to the
Tunisians as the " Sea of Gurna." The French, whose numbers have more than
tripled since the events of 1881, almost exclusively occupy the new town, near the
" Marina," a promenade where meet people of all nations and costumes : Mussul-
mans with hats, and Christians with turbans, hybrid beings produced by the contact
of two civilisations.
The transformation of Timis into a European city is much less advanced in
sanitary respects. Most of the streets having no drains, the refuse from the houses
is collected in open ditches, and removed by scavengers at stated times. It often
happens that for several days the streets are obstructed by heaps of earth and sand,
on which all manner of filth is thrown, so as to harden it by exposure to the air,
and thus render it easier to be carried away. The drains of the town, sloping
towards the Bahira, run into seven open kandaks, or canals, which discharge into
the neighbouring lake. These trenches, never being cleaned, emit an unbearable
stench, to which the natives formerly attributed the exceeding healthiness of Tunis,
which, however, is probably due to the north winds. But the districts watered by
these foetid streams are precisely those on which the new quarters are to be built.
Hence the urgent necessity of a main drainage system for the collection of the
sewage, and its chemical treatment at some distance from the town. Although
there is not yet a sufficient supply of water for all requirements, there is still enough
to put an end to the abominable smells which, no less than the perfumes of its
flowers, have procured for Tunis the surname of " the odorous."
The question of rendering Tunis, and more especially the French quarter,
healthy, is connected with that of the new port, which it is proposed to construct
in the neighbourhood of the present " Marina." On the solution of this problem
depend the future prospects of Tunis. Large ships are at present obliged to anchor
off Goletta, about half a mile from the shore, and passengers and merchandise have
to be landed in steamboats or rafts, which penetrate up the narrow canal, either
discharging their cargo on the quays of Goletta, or proceeding to Tunis across the
shallow lagoon. In rough weather, the passage from the vessel to the shore is not
without danger, and the cargoes are very often damaged by the sea water. Masts
rising above the water mark the sites of sunken vessels, whose keels obstruct the
approaches to the coast. The heavy charges for passengers and goods between the
port and the offing are also a great obstacle to the development of trade. Since
Tunis has been connected with Bona by a direct line of railway, and a double stream
of traffic established with the interior through the custom-house station of Ghar-
dimau, the commercial movement has been largely diverted to Algeria, thanks
especially to the superior advantages of the port of Bona. Even from Tunis itself
goods have been forwarded direct to Europe through this port. Hence the urgent
importance of re-establishing the natural balance by creating a well- sheltered and
commodious harbour at this place. For this purpose it is proposed to form a deep
entry in the roadstead by means of jetties, and to continue this channel by a cutting
south of the town, and of the narrow passage now followed by the boats, which is
TUNIS, STREET IN THE SCK DISTRICT.
TUNIS.
173
itself probably the work of man. In tbe middle of the Babira a navigable way is
to be formed by dredging to a deptb of about 20 feet, which would suffice for the
vessels now frequenting the port of Goletta. The future basin would have an area
of about 25 acres. Fishing is very productive in the Bahira of Tunis, the thirty
boats employed in this industry yielding a yearly supply valued at fifteen hundred
tons. Some speculators have proposed to drain the Bahira ; but in any case it will
be necessary to empty the Sebkha of Seljum, which during the floods covers a space
Fig. 54.— Tunis.
Scale 1 : 60,000.
56"!;..^
lO'ii
■•-- Underground Conduit.
^^_^_^^_i^->. 2,200 Tarda.
of 6,250 acres south-east of the capital. Standing about 20 feet above sea-level,
this malarious slough might easily be drained by a simple cutting south to the
neighbouring gulf.
Tunis does not rank as a " learned town," and much will have to be done before
it can again merit the praises bestowed upon it in the Middle Ages, when the title
of El-Timsi, or " the Tunisian," was synonymous with a man of science and letters.
17i NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
No doubt, of the five hundred schools in the regency one hundred and thirteen are
"Koranic," and the large schools or medresse attached to the mosques are always
frequented by students from far and near, who recite the Koran, learn the " sciences
of traditions," and, like the students of the University of Cairo, repeat grammatical
rules, medical formulas, astrological spells, and magical incantations. The Jemaa
Zitxma, or " Mosque of Olives," the finest religious edifice in Tunis, is frequented
by six hundred students, Tunisians and foreigners. Those who come from the
interior of the regency nearly all become students so as to evade military service
and escape the poll-tax. The Timisian scholars study more especially law and
grammar, so as to obtain a diploma which will enable them to become either pro-
fessors or notaries. The mosque possesses two libraries of ancient Arabic com-
mentaries, much venerated works, which can only be borrowed by those authorised
by the Sheikh-el-Islam, the head of the University.
But the movement that is to give renewed life to science must come from
abroad, and this extraneous influence is, fortunately, not wanting. Besides the
primary Italian and French schools and establishments founded with religious
motives, such as the Jewish schools and the Catholic College of Saint Charles,
there are also institutions where the Mussulmans can study the French language
and the rudiments of science. The Sadiki College, founded in the reign of Sadok,
has a hundred and fifty pupils, many of whom have already been sufficiently
advanced to enter the i^lawi College, a normal school of recent foundation, where
the pupils are trained as masters for the future schools of the regency, and where
the young Mussulmans and Europeans are seated on the same forms. In 1897 the
number of Mussulman children who were receiving a French education was
calculated at nine hundred ; while the Franco-Jewish schools, founded by the
IsraeHtish Alliance, were instructing over twelve hundred children in the same
language. But, although possessing valuable private collections of books, Tunis
has as yet no public library or museum, and the works which have been presented
or left to the town still (1885) repose ia the packing-cases. The historian Ibn-
Khaldun was a native of Tunis.
Outside the fortifications there are no straggling suburbs, and the desert begins
at the very city gates ; the bluffs of the chain separating the Bahira from Lake
Seljum alone bear a few dilapidated forts and two Mussulman convents. The
palace of the Bardo, which stands in the plain, north of the Seljum depression, is
not an isolated structure, but quite a separate quarter, with ramparts and towers,
set apart not only for the prince but also for the whole court, garrison troops, and a
large population of provision-dealers and artisans. The royal apartments, covered
with ornaments, hangings, embroideries, painted flowers, alabasters, marbles,
offend the eye with their tasteless mixture of forms and colours, and all this sham
luxury appears all the more repulsive in association with the torn tapestries, the
crumbling walls, warped timber and furniture, revealing the poverty of the place.
Some country houses, which stand farther west in the Manuba olive groves, or else
north of Tunis in the Ariana and Belvedere districts, and on the sea-shore in the
Marsa valley, without being so showy as the Bardo arc in reality much finer
MAESA.
175
buildinge, more gracefully decorated, and surrounded with more luxuriant vegeta-
tion. The Bey's usual residence is at Marsa, and near his palace are grouped the
Fig. 55.— La Goletta.
Scale 1 : 74,000.
Depths.
0tol6
Feet.
16 Feet and
upwards.
3,300 Yards.
houses of the French governor, the English consul, and other dignitaries. In
summer the beach at Marsa is crowded with bathers from Tunis.
176 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
This rural retreat is directly connected by a short railway with Tunis and with
Goletta, a small town of Italian appearance, occupying the western bank of the
canal by which vessels enter the Lake of Tunis. On the eastern bank the only
buildings are the barracks, a mosque, a manufactory, and the gate leading to
Rades. The new houses, wliich already form a distinct quarter, are built farther
west, at the narrowest point of the sandy spit of land known to the ancients as the
Ugula. Still farther on the military hospital of Kram, or the '* Fig-trees," forms
the nucleus of a new district at the foot of the Carthage hills. On these heights
JIalka occupies the very site of the ancient Carthaginian suburb of the same name,
and its houses, like those of Sidi Daud and Duar-esh-Shott, are built with the
remains of the old cisterns, ramparts, amphitheatre, and circus. Finally, on the
highest point of Cape Carthage, the white houses of Sidi Bu-Sdid are visible amid
the surrounding olive groves. This town was formerl}^ a sacred place, which
Christians were forbidden to enter, but it is now much frequented by all classes of
Timisians. It is commanded, from an elevation of about 430 feet, by a lighthouse,
and during the hot season it enjoys a fresh sea breeze blowing above the stagnant
atmosphere of the plains.
Carthage.
The first Phoenician colony was probably built at the extremity of the cape,
between the sea and the lake, at the spot where now stand the Kram hospital and
the half-choked-up basins of the port. But Komheh (Kambi or Kaccabi), the
town of the Sidonian immigrants and, together with Hippone, the oldest colony on
the coast, does not appear to have flourished until the arrival of the Tyrian
immigrants, when a new city was founded under the name of Kiryath-Hadcshat
or Kartndash, whence the Roman form Carthago. The plateau on which the first
Tyrian colonists excavated their tombs, outside the city, and where they afterwards
built the citadel of Bi/rsa, has been clearly identified by archseologists. Situated
to the south in the Carthaginian hills, it stands at a lower elevation than the
Sidi Bu-Said headland, but it offers a much more advantageous and regular site
for extensive buildings. The work of nature also appears to have been perfected
by the hand of man, by a levelling process similar to that which the Athenians
executed on the summit of the Acropolis. In the centre of this platform stood
the temple of Eshmun, and, under the Roman sway, Esculapius was worshipped
here, representing the same divine force under a different name. Since 1842 this
tract of land, presented to France, is commanded by a chapel dedicated by Louis
Philippe to St. Louis. According to the local tradition, the French king embraced
Islam before his death, and the Arabs still worship him under the name of Bu-Said,
or the " Father Lord." A beautiful garden surrounds the chapel, in whose walls
are embedded thousands of old remains — Punic, Roman, and Christian inscriptions,
busts, bas-reliefs, fragments of sculptures, idols, statues of saints and martyrs,
altars and tombstones. The buildings of the great college which skirts one of
the sides of the Byrsa terrace contain, on the ground-floor, the most valuable
inscriptions of the collection, urns, sculptured stones, glass and metal objects.
CAETHAGE.
177
This museum, mainly of local origin, is rendered all the more valuable by the
marvellous panorama which unfolds itself to the view of the observer from the
lofty terrace of Byrsa. At his feet lie the lake, the shimmering sea, the town
of Goletta, Mount Bu-Kurnem recalling the outlines of Vesuvius, the distant
Fig. 56. — Caethaqe.
Scale 1 : 96,000.
lO'te
lO'* L.\ dfilo'-eenwich
0tol6
Feet.
Depths.
16 to 32
Feet.
32 Feet and
upwards.
22 Yards.
Zaghwan peak, and, in the immediate vicinity of the plateau, the sparkling and
winding waters of the former Carthaginian ports.
On the steepest side of the rock of Byrsa, now covered with vegetable mould,
Beule has brought to light the remains of walls in some places still 16 feet in
height, and similar in construction to the so-called Cyclopean walls. A bed of
cmders, filled with metal fragments, pieces of glass, and potsherds, is probably a
remnant of the fire which preceded the capture of Byrsa by Scipio. The wall
178 NORTH- WEST AFRICA.
which has been laid bare is no less than 33 feet thick, affording room for five or
six chariots to pass abreast on its flat top. Recesses were hollowed out in the
thickness of the wall, which doubtless served as magazines and retreats for the
garrison. The whole of this structure is as hard as the most compact rocks ; the
Roman walls erected on Punic foundations are much less solid, and are easily-
blown up by gimpowder. The other relics of those days, even those hidden
under heaps of more recent ruins, have also been destroyed or converted into
shapeless masses. In fact, " Tunis and its environs have no other quarry than
Carthage. The Arabs are as industrious as moles in undermining the ground ;
they proceed beneath it by subterranean passages, and follow along the walls which
they demolish and carry away without thinking of what they are destroying."
There still existed quite recently a corporation of "stone-seekers." In the Middle
Ages the Italian republics caused the ruins of Carthage to be systematically
excavated to provide building materials for their own edifices. According to a
tradition the city of Pisa was built entirely of marbles brought from this Punic
city. The materials now used in building the surrounding towns and villages are
procured from the vast brickfields of Carthage, which lie at the foot of the
Bu-Said hiU.
East of the Byrsa terrace, on the gentle incline of the hill, are the best pre-
served of all those cisterns which served as reservoirs for the water brought down
by Adrian's aqueduct. Unfortunately deprived at their eastern extremity of the
earth embankment which protected them from the inclemency of the weather, they
are on this side partly choked up by the remains of vaults, but to the east they
are still quite perfect. The rain water which percolates through the soil is here
preserved perfectly pure, and from this source the Arabs still draw their supplies.
The project of repairing the cisterns of Carthage has often been mooted, with a
view to provide Goletta and Marsa with water, and this work, of such urgent
necessity, wiU doubtless be undertaken in the near future. The whole of the
BjTsa reservoirs would hold 750,000 cubic feet of water, more than the combined
capacity of all the others situated along the Zaghwan aqueduct. The cisterns of
Malka have been changed into dwellings and caves by the Arab troglodytes.
The old Carthaginian ports, constructed on the site of the first Punic colony,
are also easily recognised, although the entrance is obliterated and the military
port no longer communicates with the commercial basins. Archaeologists
have discovered in the alluvial soil walls and quays, by which their original form
may be conjectured, and the island on which the admiral resided is still to be
seen in the centre of the northern basin. But it would be quite useless to
attempt to restore the port of Carthage, because modern shipping needs basins with
wider entrances and far greater depth than the old galleys. Hence, were Carthage
ever rebuilt, as has often been proposed, a new port would have to be constructed,
not inland, but in the open sea. A jetty, based on the last spur of the rocky hills
at Goletta, would stretch directly southwards to depths of over 30 feet, in such a
way as to enclose a vast sheet of water, which, even without artificial shelter, would
be always calm, thanks to the protection afforded by the Bu-Said headland from
CAETHAGE.
179
the west and north winds. At the time of the French occupation, it might have
been possible to have transferred the capital to Carthage by a bold stroke ; the
plan of the Roman town still shows the streets cutting each other at right angles,
so that the modern houses might be raised on old foundations. In healthiness,
picturesque beauty, and commercial advantages, no less than in the glory of its
Fig, 57. — Ancient Poets of Caethage.
Scale 1 : 9,000.
1,000 Feet.
name, the new Carthage might have been far superior to Tunis ; but no one has
ventured to interfere with vested interests, or modify the trade routes. Moreover,
the greater part of Carthage having, like the hill of Byrsa, become the property of
the Church, its acquisition for secular purposes would have been attended with great
difficulty . The total circumference of the enclosure is said to exceed 16 miles,
180 NOETH-WEST AFEICA.
including, to the north, the hill of Kamart, or Jebel Khawi, at once the quarry and
the necropolis of Carthage, The soft limestone of which it is composed is pierced
■with hundreds of thousands of Punic, Roman, and Christian tombs. At the foot
of the hill stretch the Sukhara lagoons, the ancient anchorage of the Punic fleet.
Although very badly worked, the saline lakes of Sukhara nevertheless yield more
salt than any other in the regency.
Although the present capital, Tunis, like the ancient Carthage, lies at the natural
issue of the plains and upland valleys of the Mejerda, the basin, properly so called,
of this river has no towns whose population can be compared to that of the coastland
cities, such as Sfakcs and Susa. On the banks of the tributaries of the Wed Meleg,
which is the longest river of the basin, nothing occurs except Arab encampments
nestling amidst the ruins of vast cities. This region, which at first sight seems to
be completely deserted, because the dwellings of the people are almost merged with
the ground on which they stand, was in the time of the Romans one of the most
populous countries of civilised Africa. As on the upper affluents of the Wed Gaf sa
and of the rivers flowing east to Lake Kelbia, the traveller here also meets with
imposing ruins covering vast extents of land. One of these ancient towns, situated
near the Algerian frontier, some 24 miles north-east of Tebessa, appears to be the
AnwKBdara of Ptolemy. These ruins, known to the Arabs by the name of Hdidm,
are about 3 miles in circumference, and include a citadel, a triumphal arch of the
time of Septimius Severus, a theatre, and several Christian basilicas. About 12
miles to the north-east, on the bank of an affluent of the Meleg, stands the stUl
inhabited town of Thala, surrounded by the extensive remains of the opulent city
of the same name, where Jugurtha vainly sought a refuge for his family and
treasures. After forty days of repeated assaults the town succumbed, but its
defenders withdrew to the royal palace, to which they set fire, and perished with all
their effects, thus defying the anger of the Romans and baffling their cupidity.
Not far from Thala are the remains of another town, whose thermal waters are still
visited by the surrounding tribe of Major Arabs, who apply the name of El- Ham-
mam, or " the Warm Bath," to these remains.
El-Kef, the chief to^\^l in the Meleg basin and in Western Timisia, is likewise a
place of great antiquity. It was already famous at the Phoenician epoch, and had
a sanctuary dedicated to Astarte, whither people came from all parts to worship
this goddess. This worship was continued under the Roman government, pilgrims
for centuries still visiting the temple of Venus, whence the name of Sicca Veneria,
long preserved under the corrupted forms of S/tikkn Benaria or Shakhanaria.
This was turned by the Arabs into Shok-ben-Nahr, or " Fiery Thorn," which gave
rise to the unfounded belief in the existence of volcanoes in this district. At the
present time the town is known merely as El-Kcf, or " the Rock." Built in the
shape of an amphitheatre on the slope of Jebel Dir, at a mean height of 2,650 feet,
El-Kef owes its importance to its strategical and commercial position, at the
converging point of nearly all the main routes of Western Tunisia south of the
Mejerda. It is extremely rich in springs, a feature of paramount importance in
these arid regions. One of the springs issues from a cavern decorated with Roman
EL-KEF— SHEMTU.
181
arcades, whicli can be followed for some distance into the interior of the rock.
Some splendid Roman cisterns have also been preserved. The French have chosen
El- Kef as their military centre, from which to command the whole region comprised
between Kairwan, Tebessa, and Suk Ahras, and the garrison they have stationed
has greatly increased the local trade. El-Kef is connected with the Tunis railway
by two rough carriage roads which pass through Neher, a small hamlet surrounded
by gardens. A geographical and archaeological society has been recently founded
at Kef.
In the Mejerda valley, the rising village of GharcUmau, the present frontier ,
military station and custom-house, stands at the mouth of the gorges through
Fig. 58. — Plain of Ghabdimau-.
Scale 1 : 285,000.
8*eo
S oO L . oT breenwich
6 Miles.
which the river emerges from the Algerian plateau on the rich central Tunisian
plains. In spite of the natural importance of this position, which is defended by a
fortress, Ghardimau is stiU a mere collection of wretched hovels. Far different
was the Eoman colony of Simittu, whose ruins lie north-east of Ghardimau,
between two rocky bluffs commanding the plain. Simittu, the Shemtu of the
present day, was one of the principal stations on the route from Carthage to
Hippo ; its site is indicated by the ruins of its amphitheatre and of the bridge
which here spanned the Mejerda, continuing the route from Sicca Yeneria to the
port of Tabarca. The cliffs which tower above Shemtu are composed of beautiful
pink, yellow, green, and purple-veined marbles, which the Eoman emperors
182 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
largely used in decorating their palaces. The quarrpng works have been resumed
for some years past, and quite a colony of Italian workmen has been established
amid the ruins. The mass of marble which projects above the soil is calculated to
contain about 875,000,000 cubic feet. The blocks of marble are taken on a branch
line to the main railway, and transported to the port of Tiinis. In Roman times
they were conveyed directly to Tabarca, across the moimtains of Khumiria.
Below Ghardimau, and connected with it by rail, is the market-town of Suk-el-
Arha, or " the "Wednesday Fair," on the right bank of the Mejerda, and in the
centre of the extensive corn-growing Dakhla plain. From a strategical point of
view Suk-el-Arba is also of capital importance, being traversed by the route which
engineering skill has constructed between El-Kef and Ain Draham in Khumiria.
A small fortified camp has been established at this place to command the passage
of the river, which has not yet been bridged. The future value of this position is
80 well understood that the railway company have made it the central station of
the service between Tunis and Suk-Ahras ; yet Suk-el-Arba itself still remains a
mere collection of miserable huts in the midst of large encampments, almost hidden
from sight by the surrounding vegetation. On Wednesdays an immense crowd of
buyers and sellers swarm on the roads which radiate around Suk-el-Arba, and the
following day this commercial movement is directed north-eastwards to another
station on the plain, called Suk-el-Khmis or " Thursday Market." The old Roman
city of Bulla Regia, where the traffic of this fertile African region was centered,
lay north-west of Suk-el-Arba, on the western spur of a little chain of hills, now
known as Jebel Larbeah. All that remains of this town are the ruins of its
fortresses, of a triumphal arch, a theatre, and a bridge. Its hot baths were supplied
by a copious stream which has been recently diverted towards the camp of Suk-
el-Arba.
Beta — Utica — Bizerta.
Beja, the largest inland town in the district bounded south by the course of
the Mejerda, is also of ancient origin. But of the old Roman Vacca or Vaga,
whence it takes its name, scarcely any remains have survived. Beja is built in the
shape of an amphitheatre on the eastern slope of a hill, above a verdant valley
through which winds the wed of the same name ; from all parts towards its gates
converge broad roads, here and there enclosing small patches of verdure, and scored
throughout with blackish ruts formed by the Roman chariot wheels. Beja is
surrounded by crumbling walls and commanded by a grey and red kasbah, now
occupied by a small French garrison. The lower part of the town, whose appear-
ance is still unchanged by the introduction of European buildings, presents nothing
to the view except the irregidar terraced roofs of its white houses. The principal
mosque, consecrated to Sidi Ai'ssa, i.e. " the Lord Jesus," is an ancient basilica, as
appears from an inscription on the wall, discovered by M. Gu^rin. According to
the natives, it is the most ancient religious monument in the whole of Tunisia.
Except a few dozen Maltese, there are scarcely any foreigners to be met in the
streets of Beja, and Europeans rarely visit the bazaar. Nevertheless this town will
BEJA— DTTGGA. 183
soon be connected with the main Tunisian railway system by a branch line, which
will tap a rich and extensive agricultural district. During the fairs it is visited
by dealers from all parts, and its population is then nearly doubled. The surround-
ing district has retained the special name of Frikia, formerly appKed to the whole
Roman province ; thus by a curious contrast this term of " Africa " is on the one
hand restricted to a small rural district, whilst on the other it has been extended to
the whole continent. The numerous mines, situated in the hills north of Beja,
will soon be traversed by the railway running to Cape Serrat and Tabarka.
The basin of the "Wed Khallad, which falls into the Mejerda at the mouth of
the gorges, is one of those Timisian districts which most abound in the finest
Roman remains. In the upper valley of the tributary are Zenfur, the ancient
Assuras, and Mest, formerly Musti, with their remains of temples, theatres,
triumphal arches, and mausoleums. Farther down Dugga, the ancient Phoenician
and Roman Thugga, is still more interesting from an archaeological point of view,
for here are still to be seen nearly the whole series of public monuments which
usually ornamented the great cities imder the Roman Empire. The famous
bilingual (Punic and Libyan) inscription, discovered in 1631 by Thomas d'Arcos,
and the study of which led to the reconstruction of the Berber alphabet, has been
detached from the superb mausoleum, of which it formed one of the faces, and
deposited in the British Museum. But the Arabs employed by Read to carry out
this work have unfortunately demolished a large portion of the building, and the
entrance of the sepulchral chambers is now obstructed by heaps of overturned
blocks. About 3 miles north of Dugga lies the Httle modern town of Tebursuk,
in the midst of oHve-trees which yield the best oil of this region. Here also stood
a Phoenician city, restored by the Romans, and many ancient ruins are still to be
seen, more especially around the copious spring near which stood the town of
Thihursicum Bure. West of Tebursuk rise the escarpments of the Jebel Gorrha, said
to be one of the richest in veins of argentiferous lead ; but these mines, pierced
with many himdred galleries by the Romans and Carthaginians, are no longer
worked, although they could be easily connected with the main Tunis railway by a
branch line.
The fluvial basin of the Wed Siliana, which falls into the Mejerda north-east
of Tebursuk, is scarcely less rich in old ruined cities than that of the Wed Khallad.
The site formerly occupied by the " mysterious Zama " is sought for in this basin
as well as in those of the Meleg and of the Wed Khallad. Not far from the
Kessera plateau, which is covered with numerous dolmens, are the still imposing
ruins of the oppkhim Mactaritanum, the Mahter of the present day. The camp of
Suk-el-Jemaa, situated on a neighbouring plateau, has been selected as an inter-
mediate station between Kef and Kairwan. This spot is the strategical centre of
the whole of Tunisia south of the Mejerda.
Below the confluence of the Wed SiKana, Testnr, a small town of great anti-
quity, standing on the right bank of the Mejerda, is mainly peopled by " Anda-
lusian" Jiloors, whose industry has surrounded it with well- cultivated gardens and
fields. Farther down on the same bank the hamlet of Slnghia is peopled with
184
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
merchants and guides who point out the fords over the river and assist the passage
of the caravans. Still lower down McJez-el-Bah, also on the right bank, guards
the entrance to the lower valley of the Mejerda; it takes its name of "Ford," or
"Passage of the Gate," from a triumphal arch which formerly stood at the
northern extremity of a Roman bridge, but of which nothing remains except a few
blocks scattered over an old river bed. A modern bridge spans the new channel
excavated by the Mejerda. The little villages of Tehurha and Jede'ida, which next
succeed along the banks of the river, already belong to the outskirts of Tunis,
which their inhabitants, many of whom claim to be of Andalusian origin, supply
with vegetables and fruit. They have both a bridge over the river, a railway
Fig. 59. — RxTiNS OF Utica.
Scale 1 : 23,000.
550 Yards.
station, and a few small industrial establishments. Teburba is the modern iovm
of the ancient Roman Tuhurho Minus, and here arc still to be seen the remains of
an amphitheatre whose arena is now overgrown with brushwood. But the town
has changed its site, as the Roman colony stood farther west on the slopes of
a hill.
North of Jedeida, the Mejerda, which winds through the lowlands and marshes,
has no more towns upon its banks. The city of Utica, the elder sister of Carthage,
which commands its mouth, is now indicated merely by a kubba, the " marabut "
of Bu-Shater, a name meaning the "Father of Skill" or the "Wise Man,"
BIZEETA. 185
possibly in reference to the famous Cato of Utica, so renowned for his high virtues
and calmness in the presence of death. A thorough examination of the ground
has brought to light the acropolis, aqueduct, cisterns, amphitheatre, theatre, hot
baths, quays, and military port of Utica. By examining the relief of the land, the
plan of the town, with its ramparts and buildings, has almost been reconstructed,
and many objects of value have been found amongst the ruins, none of which are
now visible above the ground. At the extremity of the rock of Utica flows a
mineral spring whose waters are exceptionally rich in arsenical salts. East of the
headland, on the opposite side of the plain now watered by the Mejerda, rises the*,
cape on which stood the Castra Cornelia, or winter quarters of Seipio during his
campaign against Carthage. The town of Rhar-el-Melah, called Porto Farina by
the Italians, is no longer a port, its seaward outlet being choked by sand.
Bizerta, or rather Benzert, the corrupted form of the ancient Phoenician Hippo-
Zaryfe {Hippo- Diarrhytus)^ lies mainly on the western bank of the narrow canal
whence the town took its name of Diarrhytm, or the " Pierced." The year 1898
saw the completion of most of the works undertaken in 1886 by the French
Government to constitute Bizerta one of the first naval stations in the world. An
outer harbour, 45 feet deep, has been formed by two piers or jetties, which,
projecting from two points a mile apart on either side of the channel, converge to
within 500 yards seawards. Through this opening the largest vessels can now
penetrate into the inner harbour, constituted by the natural basin of Lake Eskel
(Ashkel), a completely sheltered sheet of water of oval shape, 6 or 7 miles long,
with an area of 35,000 acres, of which 2,500 acres are over 40 feet deep, while
the rest average from 16 to 20 feet. The former shallow channel connecting
the lake with the sea has been transformed to a canal nearly one mile long, 300
yards broad, and 30 feet deep. The port, which is connected with Tunis by a
railway 60 miles long, was opened in 1895, and its capabilities were demonstrated
in 1898, when the French Mediterranean Squadron steamed easily through the
outer harbour and the channel to the inner harbour, and here rode safely at
anchor beyond the reach of the guns of any hostile fleet, In connection with
these works a new town has been laid out, which has already developed a con-
siderable local traj0fic, especially in the export of fish, such as turbot, mullet,
sole, and eels, for which the Bizerta waters have been famous from remote times,
and of which over 10,000 cwts. were sold on the Tunis market in 1897. It was
said at the time, and with great truth, that the " Khumirs were not invented for
nothing," and that "Bizerta was the sole raison d'etre of the French occupation
of Tunisia." Some of the villages near Bizerta are surrounded with well-cultivated
lands; amongst them is the charming Menzel-el-Jemil, or the "Pleasant Retreat,"
situated on an escarped hill north-west of the lake.
The Tunisian shores west of Bizerta are an " iron-bound coast," shunned by
mariners. With the exception of Bejah, there are no inland towns; the Mogod,
Amdum, and Nef za populations were still nearly independent some years ago, and
the Khumirs had frequently repulsed the troops which came to collect the taxes.
Taharka, the Tahraca of the Romans, a few miles from the Algerian frontier, is
AFRICA I. 0
186 NORTH-WEST AFEICA-
visited by a few coasting vessels, and, thanks to its position midway between Bona
(^
bo
r
and Bizerta, bids fair to become a busy port Mhcn its jetties and quays offer the
TABAEKA.
187
necessary accommodation, and when the routes running inland are bordered by towns
and villages. During the invasion of Khumiria, the operations of the French fleet
commenced in the roadstead of Tabarka, where the plan of a new town has been
traced out near the shore, at the south-east base of the steep Borj Jedid hills, and
south of the islet where still stands the castle occupied by the Genoese Lomellini
Fig. 61.— Tabaeka.
Scale 1 : 300,000.
8°59-
L. afi uceenwich
8°5^-
Depths.
OtoSO
Feet.
» to 160
Feet.
160 to 320
Feet.
320 Feet and
upwards.
6 Miles.
family from 1540 to 1742. A few ruins of Homan buildings attest the importance
which this place enjoyed at the time when it was connected by broad roads with
the marble quarries of Simittu, and along the coast with Hippo and Hippo-Zarytus.
Two modern routes now lead into the interior : one running from Tabarka to CaUe,
188
NORTH-WEST APEICA.
by the Um-Tebiil mines, the other penetrating to the camp of Ain-Draham, in the
very heart of Khumiria. A single line of railway will soon bring dowTi to the
quays of Tabarka, tannin, cork, timber from the neighbouring forests, and the iron,
lead, zinc, and silver ores from the Nefza highlands. A second line, starting from
the same mining region, which is one of the richest in the world, -^-ill run to a small
port, well sheltered by the rocks of Cape Serrat. Ancient shafts and piles of
rubbish, called "hills of iron" and " moimds of steel," show that many of these
mines were probably worked in the time of the Romans. A number of families,
„who escaped captivity at the time of the capture of Tabarka by the Tunisians in
Fiff. 62. — Coek-Teee of Feenana.
1742, have settled in various parts of the coast, where they are still known as
Tabarkans ; nearly five himdred fugitives also succeeded in reaching the island of
San-Pietro, near the coast of Sardinia. About nine hundred persons were reduced
to slavery, and even till quite recently this trade in Tabarkan men and women is
said to have been carried on. At Tunis these refugees remained for nearly a century,
deprived of the rights conferred upon Europeans, until, in 1816, the Sardinian
consul took them under his protection.
To the south rise the metalliferous and well- wooded mountains, whose products
must one day prove a source of wealth to Tabarka, although large tracts of forest
have already been wasted, a,nd have disappeared altogether to the south of
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONDITION OF TUNIS. 189
Khumiria. On the slope of Fcrnana, a place mucli frequented on market days,
stands a splendid cork-tree, an isolated giant, whose broad spreading branches cover
a circumference of 333 feet. This trysting-place of the surroimding tribes, under
whose shade the delegates of the Khumirs formerly assembled to discuss questions
of peace or war, is the last survivor of a vanished forest. Ain-Dmham, capital of
this district, derives its chief importance from the presence of the French garrison
troops. But even were the soldiers withdrawn, it may still survive as a convenient
market town for the tribes of north-western Tunisia. Near this spot stands the
famous shrine of Sidi Abdallah Ben-Jemal, which continues to be visited by
thousands of Khumirs on the feast-day of the patron saint.
Social and Political Condition of Tunis.
Tunisia is at present in a state of transition between two irreconcilable political
and social systems. Although ofl&cially a Mohammedan power, it is in reality a
province of the French colonial empire, and those who are called the masters of
the country are really subjects, upon whom the burden of subjection weighs most
heavily. Decrees are still dated according to the Mussulman era, and are preceded
by antiquated Oriental formulas ; but a new era has dawned upon the coimtry, and
the vital force and power come now from the "West. Everything changes visibly
under foreign influence : the populations, the appearance of the towns and coimtry,
the roads, trade, and the industries are all being rapidly modified.
The tide of immigration is almost entirely composed of Mediterranean peoples,
because those Frenchmen themselves who emigrate to this regency belong mostly
to the watershed of this inland sea. Italians were by far the most numerous of all
foreigners before the French occupation, and since then they have retained, and
even increased, their numerical superiority, thanks to the proximity of their country,
and to the advantages which long-established currents of trade give to new-comers.
In 1896 these Italian immigrants were numbered at about twenty thousand. The
ranks of those engaged on the pubKc works, agriculture, and the smaller industries
are of necessity recruited from amongst these Italian proletariats. The French
immigrants look for better-paid occupations, which are much more difficidt to
obtain. The Maltese, however, who are relatively very numerous, soon break up
into two distinct nationalities. Nearly all their poor are devout CathoKcs, zealously
obeying the orders of the French primate of Tunisia, whilst the middle class
Maltese, who habitually speak Italian, are naturally connected with Italy in customs
and political sympathy. It cannot be disguised that very hostile feelings are
harboured towards each other by the local French and Italian colonies. The latter
have not yet resigned themselves to the present state of affairs ; they look upon
themselves as the natural inheritors of the land, because of its geographical situation,
and of the interests which they have here created for themselves, and feel aggrieved
that it has been -^Tested from them by the French. Even in Tunis itself, the
struggle for supremacy between these two foreign elements has assumed the
character of national animosity. Two railways, the Italian Hne from Goletta, and
190 NORTH- WEST AEEICA.
that of the French from Bona-Guelma, both stop short in the European quarter,
and remain unconnected even by a lateral branch running towards the Marina.
Nevertheless, the occupation of Tunisia, as a complement to the Algerian terri-
tory, has tended to modify the situation to the advantage of the French element.
Till quite recently the predominating European language was Italian ; even in the
French families the children, accustomed to converse with young playmates from
Sicily or Naples, ended by speaking Italian in preference to their omti mother
tongue. Now, by the reverse process, French is predominating in the European
and Maltese circles. In the civil and religious schools, as well as in all public
places, both Jews and Mussulmans learn to converse in French, which, after Arabic,
has become the language of the country. Regular schools have already been
founded in most of the large towns, and Tunis, Cabes, Sfakes, Monastir, Susa,
Kairwan, Bizerta, and El-Kef, all possess normal schools for the training of native
teachers. The preponderance of the commerce with Marseilles also contributes to
assimilate the country more and more to France. Finally the garrisons, and
numerous employes scattered through the territory and journejdng from place to
place, diffuse the use of the French language around Ain-Draham, El-Kef, Kairwan,
Susa, Cabes, and other military and administrative centres. The land is sold
almost exclusively to the profit of the French speculators. There can be little
doubt that, from the side of the western plateaux, a considerable tide of immigra-
tion must set in, and thus introduce French elements, such as those already
developed in Algerian territory.
Great changes are also taking place in the Mussulman world of Tunisia. The
place of those tribes who, accustomed to independence, quit the country in order to
evade the rule of the hated " Eumi," is filled by the Algerians who come in great
numbers, nearly all with the hope of making their fortunes in the service of the new
masters. In every town they are to be met with in the position of coachmen,
porters, and servants. During the harvest the Kabyles also arrive in shiploads of
hundreds at a time, and from them the Tunisians have learnt the art of mowing
their meadows. The natives of Marocco, who are much more vigorous and energetic
workmen than the local Arabs, are also strongly represented, and together with the
Sicilians they clear the ground and plant vines on the various properties which the
French have recently acquired. The Mussulman population of Tunisia, hitherto
kept down by civil wars, the raids of plundering tribes, and oppressive taxation,
will probably begin to increase under the new administration. But, judging from
the experience of Algerian towns, where the death-rate of the Arabs normally
exceeds that of the births, it is to be feared that in the long run the same result
may bo produced in the Tunisian to\^^ls, in consequence of the very intimate
relations of the Europeans with the Moors. The social state, so intermingled with
vices, which we call civilisation, would seem under such conditions to develop its
worst features, by placing the elements of corruption within easy reach of the weak,
without at the same time giving them the power of resistance.
The property around the towns and railway stations is continually changing
hands. Since 1861 many foreigners have purchased land from the Mussulmans,
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONDITION OF TUNIS. 191
notwithstanding the uncertainty of the titles and the risks of lawsuits. A great
many fresh purchases will probably be made in the near future, when by the
adoption of the " Torrens " Act, introduced from the Australian colonies, the
formalities for the transfer of land will be greatly simplified. The beginning of
the French occupation of Tunisia presents a remarkable contrast to that of Algeria,
by the rapidity with which the French obtained possession of the agricultural
domains. The total area of the land which, in Timisia, yearly passes into the hands
of French proprietors, is already greater than in the whole of Algeria. The cause
of this difference between these two conterminous countries is due to the fact that
in Tunisia the purchasers buy the land directly from the native proprietors, whilst'
in Algeria it is assigned to the colonists by the Government after tedious administra-
tive formalities. But although the French property has increased much more
rapidly in Tunisia than in Algeria, it is much less democratic in its essential
characteristics. In Algeria there are veritable colonists, that is to say, men who
themselves handle the spade, bring up their children in the furrows, and mount
guard over their crops. They form, even more than the soldiers, the real strength
of French Algeria, for they have settled there of their own free-will, and made it
their second home. Instead of these sturdy colonists and small landed proprietors,
the European purchasers in Timisia are chiefly representatives of financial com-
panies, agents of absentee capitalists, or else, in the most favourable cases,
enterprising men who are in charge of vast tracts of land cultivated by foreign
hands. The work of colonisation, properly so-called, by the French peasantry has
no chance of success except on the western plateaux, where the similarity of the
physical conditions on both sides of the frontier tends to produce analogous social
conditions. The important work of replanting the country has been commenced
only in the Jerid dimes and along the railway from Bona to Guelma. In the Jerid
the object has mainly been to solidify the shifting sand-hills, whilst the railway
company is engaged in the acclimatisation of new plants. Of the seven hundred
thousand trees which they have had planted in their domains, the majority are
Australian acacias, which yield an excellent tannin, and also a species of eucahT)tus
known as the "blue gum-tree." A new oasis is being developed near the "Wed
Melah, in the Cabes district, thanks to the artesian weUs sunk by the explorer
Landas. But on the other hand, the disafforesting of the country still continues,
and the work of destruction by far exceeds that of restoration. Entire pine forests,
near the hamada of El-Kessera, have been destroyed solely for the sake of the bark.
The contrast between the two kinds of property in Tunisia and Algeria, is
equally striking in the methods of cultivation. Whilst at the commencement of
the colonisation, and up to a recent period, the Algerian farmers followed in the
steps of the French peasants, endeavouring to obtain from their land the various
kinds of products necessary for the support of man and beast, such as corn, roots,
fruit, and fodder, the Tunisian planters devote their attention almost exclusively
to viniculture. Agriculture has thus changed its character and become mainly an
industrial pursuit, and the evolution which has taken place in the economic world,
in consequence of the concentration of the capital, is sho^\Ti in Tunisia by agricul-
192
NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
tiiral methods different from those of the first half century of the French occupation
of Algeria. Slavery was abolished since 1842, even before it was officially done
away "with in Algeria ; but the many native day labourers, the Khaiumes, or
Fig. 63. — Railways and Higitways of Txjnis.
Scale 1 ■ 3,500,000.
L . or breernvic^i
Carringe Road.
Riilwav
no Miles.
colonists of the poorest class, who cultivate the domains of large landed proprietors,
are veritable slaves — serfs bound down by the advances made to them by their
masters, and which they repay at exorbitant interest from the share of the harvest
GOYEENMENT OF TUNIS. I93
allotted to them. Hence it is not surprising that, notwithstanding the great
fertility of the land, the populations of Tunisia have often been decimated by-
famine.
The industries, properly so called, have hardly changed since the foreign colony
has attained such great importance in this country. The result of the commercial
annexation has been more especially to diminish the productiveness of the Tunisian
workshops to the profit of foreign industries. Although the Jacquard looms have
been introduced, the Lyons textiles are gradually dri\'ing the local products from
the markets of the regency. The large steamship companies, especially those
assisted by the State, maintain a regular service along the coast, shipping the
produce of the interior in exchange for European wares. France enjoys the
largest share of the foreign trade, which is rapidly increasing.
The railways are producing in the interior of the country changes similar to
those effected by the substitution of steamships for sailing vessels. They are
abolishing the old method of transport by caravan and changing the direction of
the trade routes. The line from Tunis to Bona and Guelma, which traverses the
gorges of the Upper Mejerda, formerly avoided by the Roman highways, has
diverted to Bona part of the trade of the capital. In the same way the completed
line across Northern Tunisia, rid Beja, terminating at the port of Tabarka, has
opened a new route for commercial enterprise. Another and more important line,
from Suk-Ahras to Cabes, via Tebessa, will skirt the whole of the peninsular region
of Tunisia, running directly from the Algerian ports to the Jerid district and the
oases of Tripoli. At present the construction of railways is proceeding slowly;
nor is the traffic of much importance, the company, which is guaranteed a return
of "6 per cent, by the State, having no interest in developing a local trade by
which it would be in no way benefited. The railways most likely to be first con-
structed are the northern line, from Jedeida to Mater, and later on to Bizerta; the
eastern line, continuing that of Hammam-Lif to Hammamet across the neck of
the Dakhelat-el-Mahuin peninsula; and the southern line to Zaghwan and Kirwan,
the Siisa branch of which is already completed.
In 1847, long before the annexation, the French Government had established a
postal service in the regency, and later on introduced the telegraph system. The
chief towns are regularly visited by postmen, and in every direction the country
is traversed by telegraph wires, connecting those of Algeria with Tripoli. The
Arabs scrupulously respect the wires and posts, which are useful to them as land-
marks and signposts.
Government of Tunis.
The government of Tunisia is divided between two centres of authority, those
of the Bey and of the French. According to the Bardo Convention, the Bey still
rules, and even exercises absolute control over all affairs of the interior ; but
France, who has converted Tunisia into a protectorate, undertakes the defence of
the country and administers its finances through a <' Minister Resident ; '' in other
194 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
words, she disposes of the capital and military resources of the regency. The
power is therefore really in the hands of the French, the Bey and his agents being
invested with the mere semblance of authority. Nevertheless, in certain respects,
Tunisia may be said to have remained a distinct state. It has a political individu-
ality with its own administration, special legislation, and interests now opposed to
those of the neighbouring territory of Algeria. In the small towns the relations
between the French and the natives are regulated by consuls and "civil controllers,"
in the same way as those between two foreign peoples. Objections are even raised
to the " Bey's subjects " being made naturalised Frenchmen. Both French and
Algerian merchandise is examined by the custom-house with the same rigour as if
it came from England or Italy, and is charged with an ad valorem duty of 8 per
cent. The weights and measures are even different, and the French metrical
system, already adopted by some five hundred millions of people in the two hemi-
spheres, has not yet been officially introduced into Tunisia. The civil tribunal of
the capital and the six justices recently instituted in Tunis, Goletta, Bizerta, Susa,
Sfakes, and El-Kef, decide cases between Europeans and natives according to the
French laws. Since 1885 the magistrates are even paid by the Tunisian budget
as officers of the Bey's Government ; but they are under the jurisdiction of the
Algerian court of appeal. The consular tribunals of the various nations have been
suppressed, and in the rural districts the administration of justice is entrusted to the
kaids, assisted by the local khalifas and sheiks. The degrading punishment of the
bastinado, which was always inflicted on the despised Jews, is no longer applied.
The press, which in 1897 consisted of eleven papers, is subject to official control.
There are no forms of parliamentary representation, but the absolute power of
the Bey is held in check by the supreme authority of the resident general, who has
alone the right to correspond with the French Government through the Minister
of Foreign Affairs. The officers of the army and navy and all the higher officials
are under his orders. The general in command of the troops occupying the country,
as well as the archbishop, who is the head of a small army of priests and nuns,
and spiritual guide of the whole Maltese community, also enjoy considerable influ-
ence in virtue of their respective functions. At the same time an appearance of
authority is left to the Timisian ministry, which superintends the finances, the
pres3, the administration of justice, the public works, the army and na^y. But
the French governor presides over foreign affairs as the representative of the
sovereign power. According to established usage, the office of Bey is inherited
by the eldest male of the family, whatsoever may be the degree of his relationship.
The present heir presumptive is the Bey's brother. His official title is " the Bey of
the Camp," and till quite recently he commanded the forces which are sent from
province to province to collect the taxes.
The financial difficulties of the Bey were one of the chief causes which led to
the occupation of the country by the French troops. The French and other
bankers, who had readily advanced him large sums at heavy interest, and who held
mortgages over his property, at last assumed the collection of the taxes, and sought
farther security in the indirect possession of the political power. Thus arose the
GOVEENMENT OF TUNIS. 196
intrigues and struggles of all kinds which, together with political complications,
culminated in the events of 1881. Accordingly, one of the principal clauses of
the treaty which put an end to the independence of Tunisia, stipulated for a
financial reorganisation of the regency, " assuring the administration of the public
debt and guaranteeing the rights of the creditors of Timisia." The revenues of
the country were divided into two portions: one for the ordinary expenses of
administration, the other and larger portion in security for the public debt of
£5,700,000. A financial committee was appointed to represent the creditors, with
power to supply any deficit from the State revenues, which for this purpose were
placed under their control. The Government was even forbidden to make any
reforms, create or change any taxes, issue new loans, or establish any public service
without their consent ; and although this committee no longer exists, the interests
of the creditors are none the less well protected. The chief revenues assigned to
them are, the custom-house duties, the tobacco, fisheries, and salt monopolies, the
market dues in most of the towns, and the taxes on the oHve-trees in the Sahel and
other districts.
To the State is left the unpopular mejda, or poll-tax of twenty- two shillings a
head, which falls chiefly on the poor, most of the rich having found means to evade
it. Another burdensome tax is the kanun, which is charged on olive-trees, in
addition to a tithe. In bad seasons the farmers have often cut down their trees to
prevent the officers from claiming a tax they were unable to pay. The considerable
recent increase of trade, the suppression of smuggling, the dismissal of over four
thousand useless officials, and the strict enforcement of the custom-house duties,
have all combined to restore order in the financial chaos ; and the estimates for
1898 show that the receipts now about cover the expenses, although the cost of the
army of occupation and other claims of the French budget, represent nearly the
whole value of the public income. The habbus, or church property, said to com-
prise one-third of the soil, is almost exempt from taxation, paying into the treasur}^
little more than £4,000 a year.
In 1897 the French military forces, which have been greatly diminished since
the first years of the occupation, numbered eleven thousand men distributed
throughout the strategical parts of the country. The three military centres are
Tunis, Susa, and Cabes, and in the interior the chief garrison towns are, Ain-
Draham, El-Kef, Kairwan, and Gafsa. The conscription is in force in Tunisia,
but the native army, modelled on that of France, is employed chiefly in parade
service at the palaces of Marsa, the Bardo, and Goletta. In 1897 this army, which
on paper consisted of several thousand, numbered in reality only 500 infantry, 25
cavalry, and 100 artillery ; officers on the retired list are even more numerous
than privates in active service. But the regular army is supplemented by bodies
of mahzen, spahis, and hambas, who act as policemen. In 1884 the Kulugli, or
Hanefiya irregulars, of Turkish origin, and the Zuawa (Zouaves), mostly Kabyles,
were disbanded to the number of 4,000.
The natural divisions of Tunisia are so clearly traced, that there has been little
difficulty in selecting the chief strategical points. The whole of the lower Mejerda
196 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
Vallev, the basin of the "W"ed Melian, and the Dakhelat-el-Mahuin peninsula, are
included within the military circle of Tunis. The quadrilateral group of mountains
and hills bounded south by the course of the Mejerda, has the town of Beja for its
capital, and the Camp of Ain-Draham has been established in the centre of this
reo-ion to overawe the Khumir tribes. The mountainous districts which separate
the Mejerda from the affluents of Lake Kelbia have the town of El-Kef as a
military centre, while the rugged hamada region is commanded by the camp of Suk-
el-Jemaa. Kairwan is the natural capital of the plains and valleys which slope
towards Lake Kelbia, and the Sahel at Ras Kapudiah is divided into two sections,
one depending upon Susa, the other on Sfakes. The natural centre of the steppes
and isolated highlands of Northern Tunisia, as far as the depression of the shotts, is
Gafsa, and the whole of the southern region as far as the Tripolitana frontier and
the desert, forms the military district of Cabes, in some respects the most impor-
tant of all, because it commands the entrance of the Saharian regions, and would
enable an enemy to invade Algerian territory by the southern face of the Aures
mountains.
The regency is divided administratively into titans, or departments of varying
extent, each governed by a kaid, assisted by one or more khalifas, or " lieutenants,"
according to the importance of the province. The towns, villages, and tribal com-
munities are ruled by sheikhs, who levy their fees directly on their subjects. Such
fees are known euphemistically as the "price of slippers," the boots worn out in the
public service being looked upon by these officials as a justification of their extor-
tions. The municipal commissions which sit in a few communes, such as Goletta, El-
Kef, Bizerta, Susa, and Sfakes, are composed of resident Europeans, nominated by the
Government, and of Mussulmans elected by the notables. The utans have been
frequently changed in nimiber. At the time of the French annexation, there were
more than twenty, not including those of special tribes, nomad or half-settled, which
were administered separately.
CHAPTER IX.
ALGERIA.
HE central portion of Mauritania, tliis " Island of the West," which
by its geology, as well as its climate and products, formerly
belonged to the European continent, has been again politically
detached from Africa, and connected with the opposite shores of
the Mediterranean. Even from the beginning of history, the rela-
tions of thi^ country, whether peaceful or warlike, have always been, not so much
with the African lands from which it is separated by the Sahara, as with regions
lying to the north or west beyond the sea. Archaeology reveals even in prehistoric
times, the builders of the dolmens migrating to Gaul across Spain from Mauritania ;
then, at the very dawn of history, we find the Sidonians and Tyrians founding their
marts on the coast of Mauritania. To the influence of the Phoenicians succeeded
that of the Romans and Greeks ; even during the interregnum caused by the migra-
tions of the barbaric peoples from the north, the conquering Yandals, advancing
from the shores of the Baltic, penetrated to these southern regions, where they finally
became extinct without leaving any distinct traces of their presence amongst the
jN^orth African nations. Then the Arabs, mixed with Syrians and Egj^tians, spread
rapidly throughout Mauritania, followed in their turn by the Turks, who here
established a chief seat of their maritime power.
Historic Retrospect.
But even when the shores of Maghreb were being overrun by invaders from
the east, its relations, mostly of a hostile character, were still mainly with the
opposite side of the Mediterranean. For over ten centuries pirates from the
south, at first known as Moors or Saracens, afterwards as Barbary corsairs,
maintained a state of continual warfare against commercial Europe, and even
extended their depredations beyond the Strait of Gibraltar. In order to escape
these sudden attacks, the towns and villages along the Mediterranean seaboard
were built on hiUs, at some distance from the shore, and surrounded by walls. In
the warfare which continued from century to century between the Mussulmans and
Christians, the former at first had the upper hand ; they seized Spain and Sicily,
198 NOETH-WEST AFEICA.
and even for a considerable time occupied the " Moorish " mountains on the
French coast, while their expeditions penetrated into the valleys of the Garonne,
the Loire, and the Rhone, to the very heart of the Alps. Yet in the Middle Ages
the war had already been transferred to Africa during the Crusade of St. Louis,
and although it ended in disaster, the Spaniards followed up the conquest of
Grenada by seizing Oran, Bougie, Mostaganem, and Algiers ; the inland town of
Tlemcen even became tributary to them, and it seemed as if Spain, after being so
long in the power of the Arabs and Berbers, were about to vanquish them in its
turn. But the tide of victory was again arrested, and notwithstanding his assumed
title of Africanus, Charles V. proved less successful in Maiu'itania than his
ancestor Ferdinand. His fleet was destroyed by a tempest, and from that time
most of the European powers paid a tax to the Turks of Algiers to protect their
trade ; and when they refused this shameful tribute, they foimd it necessary to
blockade and bombard the coastland towns of Algeria, or else to pay heavj' ransoms
to liberate the captives of their respective nations. The war was continued
between the Barbary states, and Europe and its outport of Malta, under a thousand
different forms. In the end the advantage remained in the hands of the European
nations, for the Turks failed to acquire any footing on the northern shores, whilst
on the coast of Africa many a trading place, such as Tabarka and Calle, fell into
the hands of the Christians, and several islets and fortified peninsulas, such as the
presidios of the coast of Marocco, and even the town of Oran, were occupied by
Spanish garrisons till the year 1791.
The decisive blow was delivered in 1830. The town of Algiers, in which were
amassed all the treasures of the corsairs, fell into the power of the French ; then
other places on the coast were successively occupied and, by the very force of
circumstances, in spite of the uncertain plans, political changes, and temporary
checks, the conquest of the interior was gradually accomplished. The whole of
Algeria, which is much larger than France, has been annexed as far as the border
land between the settled districts and the domain of the nomad tribes. Tunisia
has experienced the same fate ; and if Marocco, separated from the province of
Oran by a badly defined frontier, has not yet become European territory, the cause
is due to the jealousy of the rival Powers. However Spain, after a long period of
inaction, has again assumed an aggressive attitude, occuppng a strip of territory
on the Atlantic seaboard ; while the French troops have often crossed, at L^ja, the
Shott Tigri and Figuig, the conventional line of the Moorish frontier, in order to
curb the hostile border tribes. Marocco may already perhaps be considered as
politically annexed to Europe, and the people themselves are the first to recognise
their inevitable destiny.
Henceforth connected with Europe, Northern Africa has acquired considerable
importance in contemporaneous history, and Algeria especially participates in the
intense life which now animates civilised society. After Egypt, Algeria of all
other African regions has been the theatre of events whose influence has been
most far-reaching. Next to Cape Colony, Algeria is the largest centre of Euro-
j)ean populations, and in spite of thirty years of almost incessant wars, it has.
HISTORIC EETROSPECT.
199
relatively speaking, even been more rapidly peopled by European immigrants
than the English possessions in South Africa. It is not an industrial field or an
immense farm like Java, or British India, which are often wrongly spoken of as
"colonies," and too often also held up as examples to the military powers of
Europe. Like Canada, although under other political conditions, it has become a
second France beyond the seas. Taken altogether, the work of the conquering
nation, mixed with good and ill and very complicated in its effects, like all human
works, has not had the general result of diminishing and debasing the natives.
There are doubtless men who demand that the historical law of an eye for an eye
Fig. 64.— Geadtjal Conquest of Algeria.
Scale 1 : 12,000,000.
K3 KJ
1830—35. 1835-40. 1840-45. 1845—50. 1850—55. 1855—60. 1860-80. 1880—98.
The underliaed names indicate places -where the Marseilles ti-aders had factories.
150 Miles.
should be meted out to the Arabs, and that they should be " di-iven " towards the
desert, as they formerly drove the Berbers towards the mountains. In many parts
of the Tell and the outskirts of the towns these processes have already been even
put in practice, in an indirect but legal way, " by means of expropriation for the
pubHc benefit." But most of the Arabs are still in possession of their lands, and
what remains to them would be quite sufficient to support them if it belonged
to the peasantry themselves, and not to great chiefs who really own it in the name
of the tribe. In spite of the injustice and cruelties which accompany every act of
200 NOETH-WEST Ai^EICA.
sudden invasion, the situation of the Arabs has not grown worse, while that of the
Kabvles, Biskri, and Mzabites has even improved, thanks to the stimulus given to
their trade industries. Algeria has received much more from France than she has
returned, and the people of the country, though not treated as equals, have in
many respects gained more liberty since the period of Turkish rule. Many of the
European settlers themselves have endeavoured to vindicate their right to fellow-
citizenship with the Arabs and Kabyles by their industrious habits and perseverance
in founding new homes under the most adverse circumstances, in the midst of
fanatical and hostile populations. Thanks to their indomitable energy and patience,
the land may be said to have been subdued far more by the plough than by the
sword.
In this peaceful, though none the less arduous, conquest of the soil, the non-
French colonists took at first the largest share, and even still scarcely yield to the
French settlers in agricultural enterprise. With the Provencals, and others from
the south of France, they have helped to solve the vexed question of the acclimatisa-
tion of Europeans in the Barbary States. Immigrants from the north of France
and Central Europe are less capable of resisting the unfavourable climatic
influences, and amongst them the mortality is normally higher than the birth-rate.
If the settlements were recruited exclusively from these sources, the work of
colonisation would have to be incessantly renewed. But the Catalonians, Pro-
vencals, Genoese, and other southern peoples find little inconvenience in migrating
to the regions south of the Mediterranean, where they still meet the same flora
and fauna, and in some respects even the same ethnical elements, as in their
native land. As in the time of the Iberians and Ligurians, kindred races continue
to settle on the north coast of Africa, where the difference of latitude is largely
compensated by the greater elevation of the land. The work of assimilation is
thus being effected by the Mediterranean races, and to them will mainly be due
the development of the New Algeria, with its cities, highways, industries, and
general European culture.
At the same time the work of civilisation has hitherto been carried out in a
desultory and perfunctory manner. The country might even have been aban-
doned altogether, if the monarchy, threatened in the streets of Paris by the
Republicans, had not foimd it convenient to get rid of its enemies by banishing
them to the Algerian border-lands. Even before the July revolution, the conquest
of Algeria seemed to offer a career for these unruly elements, and in the year
1831, the Government succeeded in enlisting as "volunteers" for this service some
four thousand five hundred Parisian malcontents. Thus the new conquest became
a place of exile before it developed into a colonial settlement.
The conquest itself continued to tax the resources of the mother country, and
its settlement has already cost at least £240,000,000, besides the lives of several
hundred thousand soldiers and colonists. It may even be asked whether this
constant drain of men and treasure may not have been the primary cause of the
late disastrous war with Germany, followed by a rectification of frontier to the
advantage of that Power.
PHYSICAL FEATTJEES. 201
The expressions " 'New France " and " African France," often applied to
Algeria, are in many respects fully justified. The French have undoubtedly already
acquired a firm footing in this part of the continent, where they have introduced
their language and their culture. French towns and villages have sprung up, not
only along the seaboard, but in every part of the country, which is now intersected
in all directions by highways running to the verge of the desert. The work
accomplished by the French in haK a century may be compared with that which
resulted from seven centuries of Roman occupation. Thanks to the railway
telegraph, and other appliances of modern science, they have rapidly spread over
the whole land, penetrating southwards to the oasis of El-Golea, 180 miles beyond
Jelf a, apparently the last outpost of the Romans towards the Sahara. The political
annexation of the country to Europe may already be regarded as an accomplished
fact. The native elements, broken into fragments, differing in speech and orio-in
and separated by great distances, have ceased to be a serious menace to the
European population, which, if still inferior in nimibers, forms a more compact
defensive body, commanding all the large towns, arsenals, strategical points, and
resources of modern industry.
From the geographical standpoint, the annexation of Algeria to the known
world has already made considerable progress. Works of all kinds relating to the
colony are reckoned by the thousand, and amongst them are many of great scientific
value. The great topographical atlas, of which several sheets have already appeared,
may be compared with similar works issued by the European states. Geographical
exploration is being continually supplemented by a scientific study of the soil, and
the provisional geological charts will soon be replaced by more exhaustive sheets,
depicting the series of stratified formations in the fullest detail. Some blank
spaces are still visible on the maps, especially about the Mzab district. But even
here the itineraries are beginning to intersect each other in various directions, and
the work of exploration, begun by Duvep'ier, Soleillet, Largeau, Flatters, and
others, will soon be systematically continued in the direction of the Sudan. The
ancient history of the country is also being restored by a study of the local inscrip-
tions and other monuments that have escaped the ravages of time.
Physical Features.
The relief of Algeria is characterised by a remarkable simplicity of outline.
Forming a nearly equilateral four-sided figure, it contrasts even with the conter-
minous regions of Marocco and Tunis in the almost rhythmical harmony of its
undulations. Between Nemours and Algiers the normal direction of the coast is
south-west and north-east, and the same direction is followed by aU the mountain
ranges, valleys, and plateaux occupying the whole space, 180 miles broad, between
the Mediterranean and the Sahara. At the time of the conquest it was supposed
that this space was traversed by two main ranges, the Great Atlas in the south, and
the Little Atlas in the north. But this double orographic system has no existence,
AFRICA I. p
202 NORTH- WEST AFEICA.
the surface of the land being characterised not by continuous well-defined chains,
but by parallel ridges frequently interrupted by intervening depressions.
In the west a coast range running close to the sea is broken at intervals by
semicircular inlets excavated by the waves. Farther east the work of erosion has
been still more extensive, and here the coastline runs almost uniformly west and
east, so that the parallel ranges running south-west and north-east develop a regular
series of headlands, all of which project in a north-easterly direction seawards, and
shelter from the north and north-west winds several seaports, such as Dellys, Bougie,
Collo, Stora, Bona, and others. These highlands contract gradually towards the
east, from a breadth of 210 miles under the meridian of Oran, to 135 under that
of Constantino. The Sahel, as the western coast ranges were formerly collectively
known, is separated from the other uplands by a broad depression disposed parallel
with the Mediterranean, and stretching with little interruption from the heights of
Oran to the foot of the Miliana hills.
The escarpments of the plateau, which on the west follow in uniform parallel
lines south of this depression, and which on the east terminate in a series of
headlands along the coast, are skirted southwards by numerous dried-up lacustrine
basins, such as Eghris south of Mascara, Beni-Sliman between Medea and Aumale,
and "Wed Sahel south of Jurjura. Increasing in altitude as they recede from the
coast, these plains form the outer terraces of the upland plateaux of Central
Algeria. The Jebel, a term applied collectively to the border ranges, nowhere
exceeding 6,000 feet, except in the Jurjura district, constitutes, with the maritime
zone, the so-caUed '' Tell," or " hiUy country ; " but in these uplands are situated
all the fertile valleys and grassy slopes, whence the absurd identification of the
word tell with the Latin tellus, as if this region were the productive land in a pre-
eminent sense. At the same time, such is the fertility of its soil, and the abundance
of the rainfall, that a population of some fifteen millions might easily be supported
on the thirty-eight million acres of the Tell.
Towards the ill- defined frontier of Marocco, the plain enclosed between the
northern highlands and those skirting the Sahara is at least 120 miles broad, with
a mean elevation of about 3,500 feet. Perfectly level in appearance, it really forms
a slightly depressed cavity, where are collected the spring and rain waters, replaced
in the dry season by extensive saline tracts. Farther east, the gradually contracting
upland plain is divided by central ridges into several distinct basins, and towards
the Tunis frontier it loses altogether the character of a zone of separation between
the northern and southern highlands. In this part of Algeria the surface is almost
exclusively occupied with a succession of ridges all disposed in the normal direction
from south-west to north-east.
From Marocco to the neighbourhood of Batna the system of southern border
chains retains its distinctive character throughout the greater part of its course, and
it was to these ranges between the upland plateau and the depression of the Sahara
that was formerly applied the title of the " Great Atlas." Yet their mean altitude
does not exceed that of the northern highlands, although one of their summits in
the Jebel Aures forms the culminating point of /Vlgeria. The true natural limits
PHYSICAL FEATURES.
203
of the country should be the Sahara itself, or the waterparting between the
Igharghar and Niger basins, or else the Niger itself as far as Upper Senegal, But
restricting it to the almost geometrical quadrilateral between the sea and the desert,
Algeria has an area of about 120,000 square miles, or somewhat less than half of
the territory virtually occupied by the French. Their outposts stretch far beyond
the natural limits of the southern uplands, and are distributed irregularly over
considerable tracts of the desert. Thus El-Golea, which now pays a regular
tribute, is 420 miles in a straight line south of Algiers, and 240 from the nearest
mountains of Laghwat. French expeditions have often reached the Ksurs of the,
Sahara, and even the Figuig district, without, however, annexing this region, out
Fig. 65. — Eeosions of the MotrNTAiNS neae Tiaeet.
Scale 1 : 900,no0.
3 Miles.
of regard for the prior claims of Marocco. The frontier in this direction is far
from clearly marked, no natural line of demarcation having been followed in
determining the political confines, which by the treaty of Tangier, in 1844, were
laid down at haphazard across moimtains, valleys, and tribal districts.
In the western province of Oran the prevailing formations are Jurassic, which
also form the chief strata throughout the plateau. In the east especially, these
rocks underlie the chalk, which in its turn is overlaid in the north by Miocene and
Pliocene formations. Alluvia of various epochs, and of vast depth, occupy the
river valleys, and in a great part of the plateau cover both the Jurassic and
cretaceous rocks. The Triassic and older schists are represented by a few isolated
204 NORTH-WEST AFEICA.
masses, while in the neighbourhood of the coast granitic peaks crop out above the
surroundino- Miocene layers. Gneiss prevails on the northern slopes of the Jurjura,
and the headlands projecting seaward consist largely of trachytes and basalts.
Minerals, marbles, gypsum, salt, and thermal springs occur in many places,
constituting for Algeria a considerable reserve of future wealth.
According to M. Bourdon the coast near the mouth of the Shelif shows signs of
upheaval. Thus the clifPs near Karuba and at other points are disposed in distinct
terraces or beaches, strewn with shells of the same species as those of the
surrounding waters. The coastlands are also subject to frequent earthquakes, the
effects of which have been felt in Oran, Tenes, Algiers, and other towns. Many
of the headlands consist of eruptive rocks, and it seems probable that the whole
seaboard, like that of Tuscany and Naples, follows a line of fault in the terrestrial
crust.
In few regions are the traces of former erosion more evident than in Algeria ;
but it is difficult to say whether they are to be attributed to the action of running
waters or of snows and glaciers ; for there can be no doubt that Algeria also had
its glacial period, of which clear indications are stUl visible on the northern slope
of the Jurjura range. The work of erosion is still going on incessantly, especially
in the Dahrc district, where the hills are formed of a compact mass of very argil-
laceous white clay, without any appearance of stratification. Similar phenomena
are also very active south of the Shelif Valley, in the argillaceous and marly hills
skirting the plateau. But the crests are here crowned with sandstone layers from
30 to 130 feet thick, which resist atmospheric influences much longer than the
underlying strata.
North of the Sahara the great Algerian quadrilateral, consisting almost
exclusively of plateaux and highlands, nowhere presents any conspicuous heights
dominating the surrounding masses. The four chief groups of the "Warsenis and
Jurjura in the north, and the Amur and Aures in the south, are grouped in a sort
of symmetrical order, none of them constituting a central nucleus distributing the
running waters in well-defined basins. Thus no river valley is found which, by
its exceptional fertility or favourable position for intercourse, might have become
a natural centre of attraction for the whole country. Hence Algeria is divided
into as many distinct territories as there are isolated upland regions and river
basins, and it is this disposition of the land that has at all times rendered its
conquest so difficult. At present a centre of attraction denied it by nature is being
gradually created by artificial means at the city of Algiers, with its new harbour,
routes, and railways radiating in all directions.
The Coast Ranges,
In the extreme north-west the Trara coast range, whose gorges afford an outlet
to the Tafna river, has a mean altitude of less than 1,650 feet, culminating in the
limestone peak of Mount Filhausen (3,860 feet), to the south-east of Nemours.
From this, as well as from several other summits between Oran and the Marocco
THE COAST EANGES.
205
frontier, a view is commanded in clear weather of the crests of the sierras on the
opposite coast of Spain, at a distance of no less than 168 miles. It thus became
possible to connect the network of Algerian triangulation with that of the Iberian
peninsula without passing through Marocco. The four points chosen for the
connecting quadrilateral were Mulhacen in the Sierra Nevada, Tetica in the Sierra
de los Filabres, at the south-east angle of the peninsula, Filhausen in the Trara
Kg. 66.— JxmcTiON of the Geodetic Lines between Algeria and Spain.
Scale 1 : 2,500,000.
0 to 320
Feet.
320 to 1,600
Feet.
Deaths.
1,600 to 3,200
Feet.
3,200 to 6,400 6,400 Feet :ind
Feet. upwmds.
60 Miles.
range, and Msabiha in the neighbouring Oran group. The chain of triangles is
now continuous from the northernmost islet in Shetland to the 34th parallel of
latitude in Algeria, and will soon be extended far into the Sahara, forming the
largest arc of the meridian that has hitherto been astronomically measured on the
surface of the globe.
206 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
South of the Great Sebkha, at the foot of the Oran coast range, stretches the
cretaceous Tessale range, terminating in the Jebel Tafarawi (3,540 feet), which is
skirted north and south by the railway between Oran and Sidi-Bel- Abbes. Farther
east the coast chain, interrupted by the extensive bay sweeping round from Arzen
to Mostaganem, reappears east of the Shelif river in the hilly Dahra plateau, with a
mean elevation of 1,600 to 2,000 feet. The Dahra system, rising gradually east-
wards, culminates in the two Mounts Zakkar (5,000 and 5,200 feet.) Farther on,
these uplands fall abruptly towards the Mitija valley, but are continued east of the
Shenua headland (3,000 feet) by a narrow ridge, which is separated eastwards by
the winding Mazafran river valley from the Sahel, or terminal heights of the
Algerian coast range.
The Southern Ranges.
South of the coast range, the first important heights on the Marocco frontier are
those of Tlemcen, one of the most regular orographic systems in Algeria. Here
the highest point is Mount Tenushfi (6,120 feet) ; but several other crests exceed
5,000 feet, and the route from Tlemcen to Sebdu, although following the lowest
level, maintains an elevation of 4,800 feet. Far to the south rise the crests of the
Arisha chain, dominated by the pyramidal limestone peak of the Mekaidu, 4,900
feet high.
The valley of the Sig, east of the Sidi-Bel- Abbes, is limited southwards by the
Beni-Shugran mountains, forming a prolongation of the Tlemcen Atlas, and cul-
minating in the Daya and Beguira peaks, 4,630 and 4,660 feet respectively. This
system is continued eastwards by the Warsenis (Wansherish, "Warensenis), one of
the loftiest ranges in Algeria, whose chief crest, terminating in a double peak, rises
to a height of 6,600 feet. These highlands, which are pierced by streams flowing
northwards, and skirted on the east by the deep valley of the Shelif, present a less
sjTnmetrical outline than the western groups. Abd-el-Kader had established his
chief strongholds amid their inaccessible recesses, and in their turn the French
have erected fortresses to command the lofty plateaux and passes leading to the
TeU.
Still less uniformity of relief is presented by the border ranges of the " Little
Atlas " stretching south of the Mitija Valley. These uplands are broken by
ravines, plains, and broad transverse fissures into several distinct groups, all dis-
posed in a line with the main axis of the Atlas system. Here the Gontas, Muzaia,
Zima, Bu-Zegza and other rugged masses are approached by military routes winding
through narrow gorges like those of the Shiffa, or ascending their steep slopes in
zigzag lines, like those of the highway between Algiers and Aumale, which attains
a height of 3,300 feet at the ciilminating point of the road leading to the territory
of the Beni-Mu9a tribe. The famous Tenia, or " Pass " in a pre-eminent sense,
which was the scene of so many conflicts in the early years of the conquest,
traverses the Muzaia hills at an altitude of 3,470 feet. For the whole of this
orographic system M. Niox has proposed the collective name of the " Tittcri
THE SOUTHEEN EANGES.
207
Mountains/' tlie old province of wliicli they form a part having been so called
before the French occupation.
One of the best-defined ranges in Algeria is that of Jurjura, the Mons Termfm
of the Romans, which runs east and north-east of the Titteri hills. Although its
highest point is only 7,680 feet, or somewhat less than the Sheliya of Aures, it
rises to a greater relative height above the plains than any other range in the
country. Seen from the north it presents an imposing appearance, being here
skirted throughout its whole length by a deep wooded and cultivated valley, which
forms a pleasant foreground to its rugged and snowy peaks. In this direction th^
snows are more abundant than on the opposite slope, and in the depressions traces
Fig. 67. — AxciEXT Glactees of the TTatjtkk Mountains.
Scale 1 : 122,000.
E , oT.Creenv.icK
3MUes.
are even seen of avalanches. At some former geological epoch glaciers filled the
gorges of the Haizer and Lalla-Khedrija slopes, and a large terminal moraine is
still visible in the upper valley of the "Wed Aissi. Elsewhere also are seen indica-
tions of the lakes which once flooded the depressions, but which have since run
dry. Of all the Algerian uplands the Jurjura highlands abound most in running
waters, rich vegetation, cool and healthy valleys sheltered at once from parching
southern and cold northern winds.
The mountains of Upper KabyKa are disposed in such a way as to form a
regular semicircle round the border of this region. Coast ranges, such as the
208
NOETH-WEST AFEICA.
basaltic promontory of Jinet, the limestone Dellys chain, and the crests of Azeffiin,
complete this extensive orographic system, which is broken only by difficult passes
and the route opened in the north-west between the Lower Seban and Isser river
valleys. While Great Kabylia from Bougie to Menerville is completely encircled
Fig. 68.— GoEOES OF the Wed Ageittn.
Scjile 1 ■ 8r>„-)no.
^lfw^-^-|-m;
br-eenwich
3,300 Yards.
by a good road, which will soon be supplemented by a railway, the heart of the
country is pierced only by a single carriage route, constructed in the year 1885.
East of the Sahcl Valley begins the partly volcanic Babor range, a continuation
of the Jurjura system, over 180 miles in length, with peaks covered with snow till
THE SOUTHEEN EANGES.
209
tlie beginnuig of summer. Such are tlie Tababor (6,550), the Great Babor (6,560
riar. 69. — View taken in the Shabet-el-Akea Route.
feet), and farther north the Jebel Adrar (6,740). Immediately to the west of the
210 N0ETH-"^T3ST AFRICA.
last uamcd lies the deep gorge of Shabet-el-Akra, excavated by the waters of the
Wed Ao-riuu to a depth of many hundred feet, and utilised by one of two carriage
routes which cross the Babor range in the direction of the coast. The hilly region
stretching thence northwards to Jijeli and Collo is one of the least accessible in
Algeria.
South of the Jurjura and Babor systems, the Jebel Dira is continued by the
Biban, or " Gates," a name due to the breaks through which, during the rainy
season, the surface waters of the plateau find an outlet to the plains. Amongst
these breaks noteworthy are the " Iron Gates," known respectively as the Great
and the Little Gate, the former of which is now traversed by the route and the
railway between Algiers and Constantino. The Little Gate, lying nearly 3 miles
farther east, also forms an easy roadway, and here the geologist may conveni-
ently study the black limestone rocks, which assume the appearance of colossal
organs, buttresses, ramparts, and other fantastic shapes. East of the Gates rises
the Jebel Sattera, an extinct volcano, whose crater is still strewn with scoriae and
pumice.
The highlands lying south of the Biban range have been broken by erosive
action into numerous distinct groups encircled by almost horizontal depressions.
Here the loftiest summit is the Jebel Maadhid (1,630 feet), beyond which point the
heights gradually fall, while the intervening depressions merge in plains extending
towards Constantino. In the neighbourhood of this town the hills reappear, but
seldom attain an elevation of much over 3,000 feet. Towards the north-east the
northern border ranges terminate in the bold headland of Edugh (3,350 feet), on
whose last spur stands the citadel of Bona. Cape Garde, which encloses the road-
stead, takes the normal direction from south-west to north-east, while the Cape de
Fer headland projects farther west in the contrary direction. But Kke the Collo
hills, this bluff is of volcanic origin, forming no part of the general orographic
system.
The ranges skirting the upland plateaui on the south begin on the Marocco
frontier, some 200 miles from the coast. North of Figuig, the highlands separating
1 he plateaux from the Sahara form a series of small groups falling gradually towards
the north-east, and collectively known as the Ksur range, from the now partly
destroyed strongholds guarding their passes. But each group, called by the Arabs
Kian ("Fort"), or Kclaa ("Castle"), has its special designation, and in fact
several present the appearance of fortifications. The chief summits are the Maiz
(6,170 feet), north-west of Figuig; Beni-Smir (6,600) north of the same oasis;
Jebel Mzi (7,320) south of Ain-Sfissifa, all commanding a view of the sandy wastes
of the Sahara.
Beyond the Ksur groups several parallel ridges, such as the Bu-Derga, Ksel,
and Tarf, form the western section of the Jebel Amur, or "Mountain" in a pre-
eminent sense, both terms having the same sense, the first in Arabic, the second in
Berber. Viewed as a whole, the Amur forms a plateau cut up by torrents flowing
some to the Algerian shotts, others to those of the Sahara. It thus constitutes a
true waterparting between the Mediterranean basin and those of the Jeddi and
THE SOUTHERN EANGES.
211
Igharghar. Its central division is occupied by the so-called gada, large stone
tables with steep vertical cliffs flanked by long taluses. Eound these great chalk
masses wind deep gorges communicating with each other by fissures in the plateau.
The Tuila Makna, their culminating point, connecting the Amur with the Geryville
highlands, has an elevation of 6,330 feet. But, if not the highest, the most impos-
ing crests are those rising in the south above the terminal spur known as the Kef-
GuebK.
East of the Amur system the highlands fall gradually in elevation and contract
in width, being reduced north-west of Biskra to a narrow ridge, which scarcely
separates the Hodna depression on the north from that of Ziban on the south. Here
Kg. 70. — Cape de Fee.
Scale 1 : 110,000.
Depths.
Oto 320
Feet.
320 Feet
and upwards.
_ 3,300 Yards.
the railway from Batna to Biskra is able to cross the hills without timnelling, by
following the gorge of the Wed-el-Kantara down to the southern plains. But this
Kne has to describe a great bend round the western extremity of the Jebel Aures,
the loftiest range in Algeria. This system, however, lacks the symmetry of outline
characteristic of most other Algerian uplands. The highest northern crests deviate
somewhat from the normal direction, being gradually inclined from west to east,
and on the whole presenting the form of a sKghtly opened fan. In the northern
range towers Mount Sheliya, the giant of the Algerian highlands, whose supreme
peak, the Kelthum (7,760 feet) exceeds by some yards the Lalla-Khedija, in the
212 N<-'ETH-WEST APEICA.
Jurjura range. From its easily ascended summit a vast prospect is commanded
of the northern plateaux and shotts between Batna and Ain-Beida, while on the
southern horizon is visible a long blue streak marking the skirt of the Sahara.
Eastward the Aures system is continued by the Jebel Sheshar and the Nememsha
moimtains, which, like the isolated ridges of the Tebessa plateau and Timisian
frontier, are noted for their natural fastnesses, often transformed into places of
refuge by the natives. These south-eastern highlands of Algeria have a mean
elevation of from 4,000 to 4,500 feet, the Sheshar range culminating in the Ali-
en-Nas, 6,250 feet high.
South of the Algerian border chains the uplands terminate abruptly in extensive
plains covered with Quaternary alluvia, and forming a sort of strait between
Mauritania and the Sahara highlands. Southwards the ground rises almost
imperceptibly towards the Ras Shaab heights, which run south-west and north-east,
parallel with the Atlas system, and which in their highest peak attain an elevation
of 2,830 feet above the Laghwat oasis. Beyond this point stretches the Sahara,
which here consists mainly of Pliocene formations, originally deposited as alluvia
by the running waters, and afterwards, doubtless, distributed by the winds, like
the yellow earth of North China. In some places the beds of this friable soil have
a thickness, according to M. RoUand, of 1,000 feet. Nevertheless, they are here
and there broken by isolated masses of cretaceous rocks, some of which occupy a
considerable space. The most extensive is the so-called Mzab plateau, which,
although separated from the Algerian uplands by a tract of Quaternary alluvia,
may be regarded as a sort of isthmus connecting the Mauritanian highlands with
the Devonian plateaux of the interior of the Sahara, and with the crystalline rocks
of the Jebel Ahaggar.
Rivers of Algeria.
Although it receives from the rain-bearing clouds a quantity of water at least
equal to that carried off by such a river as the Nile, Algeria does not possess a
single navigable stream. Its internal navigation is limited to a few skiffs and
rowing-boats on the Seybouse. The development of large fluvial basins is prevented
by the very relief of the land, the coastlands forming a narrow strip between the
plateaux and the Mediterranean, while towards the south most of the streams
flowing to the Sahara have their source on the inland slopes of the border
chains.
The total area of Mediterranean drainage may be approximately estimated at
80,000 square miles. All the rest of Algeria is distributed over closed basins,
where the water either evaporates in saline lagoons, or else runs out even before
reaching the central depression. In fact, nearly all the Algerian streams are dry
for a great part of the year, their beds presenting in the uplands nothing but bare
rock or pebbly channels, in the lowlands strips of sand lashed by every breeze into
whirlwinds of dust. The rivers, which retain a little moisture in summer, are
closed at their mouths by compact sandbars, which present a solid path to pedes-
BIVEES OF ALGERIA. 21S
trians and riders. Nevertheless, the weds are not so completely exhausted as they
seem to be, for below the dry surface there is often an imderground bed, in which
the water oozes through the sand and develops small pools above such obstacles as
rocky ledges or artificial dams.
In the extreme north-west, the Marocco frontier is marked by the little Wed
Ajerud. But the first important stream is the Tafna, which receives some affluents
from Marocco, but whose farthest source is in the Tlemcen hills, within the
Algerian frontier. Although not more than 90 miles long, the Tafna has suc-
ceeded in excavating a channel through a series of gorges, through the Tlemcen,
the Traras, and some intervening ridges. The Isser, its chief tributary, pursues a
similar course from its rise on the southern slope of the Tlemcen range to the
confluence.
Formerly the extensive low-lying plain skirted northwards by the Oran coast
ranges was flooded, and of this old lacustrine basin there still remains the great
sebkha of Misserghin, or Oran, besides some other saKne depressions and marshy
tracts fed by the Sig and the Habra. These two streams, jointly forming the
Macta, which flows to Arzen Bay, rise on the northern scarp of the Central
Algerian plateau, and reach the plain through a series of abrupt windings in the
transverse fissures of the intervening hills.
The longest river in Algeria is the Shelif, whose farthest headstream, the
Wed Namus, rises in the Jebel Amur, beyond the whole region of central plateaux.
After its junction with the Nahr Wassal fi'om Tiaret, it pierces the northern
border chains through the Boghar defile, and flows thence between the Warsenis
and Dahra ranges to the coast a little to the north of Mostaganem. But although
it has a total course of at least 420 miles, the Shelif has a smaller discharge at low
water than many Pyrenean torrents flowing to the Garonne.
The Mazafran, with its famous affluents the Shiifa, the Harrash, and the Hamiz,
which water the Mitija district, are all mere streamlets, indebted for their celebrity
to their proximity to Algiers, to the battles fought on their banks, the towns and
fertile tracts occupying their basins. More voluminous are the Isser, whose
lower course forms the western limit of Great Kabylia, and the Seban, fed by the
snows of the Jurjura highlands. The Wed Sahel, or Summan, which has a longer
course but smaller discharge than the Seban, rises to the south of the same moun-
tains, flowing thence north-east to the Bay of Bougie.
In spite of its name, the Wed-el-Kebir, or " Great Eiver," which reaches the
coast between the Jijeli and CoUo headlands, is great only relatively to the small
coast streams. One of its affluents, the Bu-Merzug, or Ampsagas of the ancients,
for a long period formed under the Eomans the frontier line between the province
of Africa and Mauritania. West of this Wed-el-Kebir of Constantine, two other
rivers bear the same name, one rising in the Guelma hills, and flowing to the
Mediterranean south of Cape de Fer, the other descending from the Khumirian
highlands in Tunisia.
Between these two eastern kebirs flows the far more important Seybouse,
which falls into the Gulf of Bona with a more constant discharge than any other
•lU
NOKTH-WEST APRICA.
Algerian river. The sources of the Sherf, its chief headstream, are intermingled
on the Ain-Beide plateau with those of the Tunisian Mejerda and its affluent, the
Wed Meleo-. At a former geological epoch the plain now traversed by the lower
Seybouse formed a marine inlet, of which the shallow Lake Fetzara is a remnant.
Between the sea and the eastern Wed-el-Kebir, at its mouth known as the Mafrag,
the town of La Calle is encircled by a girdle of three lakes — the Guera-(Guraa)-
el-Melah, or " Salt Lagoon ; " the freshwater Guera-el-Ubeira draining during the
floods to the El-Kebir ; and the Guera-el-H^t, or " Fish Lagoon," which reaches
the sea through the sluggish and sedgy El-Mesida.
Except the narrow strips drained by the Upper Shelif and the Mejerda, with
Fig. 71. — Lakes of La Caixe.
Scale 1 : 200,000.
Depth.
0 to 320 Feet.
6 Miles.
its tributary'-, the Meleg, the whole of the Algerian plateau region is comprised
within the region of closed basins, which were formerly united, and which would
again be connected in one system with a more abimdant rainfall and less elevated
temperature. The larger basins take the name of shotts, less extensive freshwater
or brackish depressions being known as dhayas, while the term ghedir is applied to
Tnuddy swamps or meres. Most of the shotts are encircled by rocky banks or
cliffs 50 or 60 feet high in some places, but now separated from the lacustrine
waters by intervening saline beaches or strips of cnmibling gj'psum mixed with
sand. Such is the aspect of the Shott Gharbi, or ""Western Shott," on the
Marocco frontier. The Shott Shergin (" Eastern ") has a total length of nearly
EIVEES OF ALGERIA. 215
120 miles in the central part of the plateau. It is divided by the Kheider isthmus
into two basins, of which the western has an extreme breadth of 15 miles.
East of the SheHf the plateau region presents nothing but small basins, such as
the Dhaya Dakhla, north of the TJkait range, and south of that range the eastern
and western Zahrez, which according to one estimate contain some six hundred
million tons of salt. North-east of Bu-Sada stretches the extensive Shott-el-Hodna,
which at a former geological epoch was certainly" an Alpine lake. Farther east
are some smaller sebkhas, the most important of which is the Tarf, whose waters
attain the highest possible degree of saturation, or twenty- seven per cent.
Most of the streams flowing from the southern border chains towards the'
Sahara are absorbed by irrigation works soon after leaAdng the mountain gorges.
Some, however, flow from oasis to oasis for a long distance from the hiQs. In the
west these wadies take a southerly course ; but near the Tunisian frontier the vast
basin of the now-dried-up Igharghar is inclined in the opposite direction towards
the Shott Melghigh depression. Lofty uplands lying in the Sahara far to the south
of Algeria give to the whole of the intervening region a northerly tilt, and this is
a point of primary importance in the physical geography of the desert. While the
running waters formerly flowed in the east, either towards an " inland sea," or
towards the Gulf of Cabes, they drained in the west in a southerly dii'ection either
to the Niger, or even directly to the Atlantic by trending round to the west.
Although the problem is not yet solved, the reports of recent explorers render the
former hypothesis the most probable.
"Within the present limits of Algeria, all the other streams rising on the
escarpments of the plateau run dry in the sandy dunes which lie some 60 miles
farther south. Such are the Wed Nemus, which rises in the neighbourhood of
Tint ; the Wed-el-Gharbi ; the Wed-es-Segguer, flowing from Breziaa, south of
Geryville ; the Wed Zergoun, fed by the torrents of the Jebel Amui* ; the Wed
Lua, skirting the east side of the Mzab plateau. The other streams of this region
flow to the Wed Mzi, the chief branch of the Wed Jeddi, which forms a geological
limit between the cretaceous plateaux and the sands of the Quaternary plains.
After a course of about 300 miles, the Jeddi merges in the vast depression of the
Shott Melghigh. Like other rivers of the Sahara flowing over rocky beds, it is
subject to sudden and formidable freshets, the dry channel at the confluence of
the Wed Biskra being sometimes flooded to an extent of 6 or 7 miles from bank to
bank in a few hours. The Wed Msif, also in the Hodna district, suddenly assimies
the proportions of a river nearly 2 miles wide, sweeping away escarpments and
whole flocks of sheep in its impetuous course.
Other wadies coming from the gorges in the Aures and Sheshar mountains, or
rising in the desert itself at the foot of the rocky escarpments, converge towards
the depression of the shotts, without always reaching it. By far the largest of
these dried-up watercourses is the Igharghar, which has its farthest headstreams in
the Jebel Ahaggar, and which develops a vast channel 1 to 6 miles wide, and
large enough to contain the waters of a Nile or a Mississippi. In some places it is
completely obliterated and choked with shifting dunes to such an extent that the
216 NOrvTH-WEST AFRICA.
general slope of its bed can no longer be recognised. But its old course is still
tr.
preserved by tradition and indicated by the natives, who now utilise it as a caravan
THE SHOTTS— ARTESIAN WELLS.
217
route. Its chief affluent, the Wed Miya, resembles the main stream in its general
appearance, presenting a series of small basins, depressions, and shotts, interrupted
by shifting sands. But the waters still flowing below the surface continually
increase in abundance towards the confluence, where a well-marked depression
begins, in which a succession of shotts, wells, pools, and springs, preserves the
character of a watercourse. Such is the valley now known as the Wed Righ
(Rhir). The confluence itself is indicated by a number of perennially flooded
sebkhas, fringed by the palm groves of Temacin.
The Shotts— -Artesian Wells.
The Shott Meruan, which forms the natural basin of all these old streams from
the south, is connected with the Shott Melghigh proper only by a narrow channel.
Fig. 73. — Valley op the Wed Mita, between the Gaeaa El-Onkser anb the Gaeaa T-el-Beida.
and ramifies eastwards in secondary sebkhas, which rise and fall according to the
rainfall and greater or less evaporation. The Shott Melghigh, forming the
northern division of the depression, terminates eastwards in the Shott Sellem,
beyond which follow several others disposed north and south, and separated by a
tongue of land from the Tunisian Shott Gharsa. This basin itself is separated
only by Jerid from the vast sebkhas which stretch eastwards to the Isthmus of
Cabes. At first sight it seemed natural enough to regard the whole of this
lacustrine system as the remains of an ancient inlet, into which the mighty
Igharghar discharged its waters, and this view was generally accepted before the
AFRICA I. q
218
NORTH-WEST Ai^RICA.
true relief of the land had been determined by careful surveys. It has now been
made evident that neither in historic times, nor even in the present geological
epoch, did the Igharghar reach the Tunisian shotts, which are separated from each
other and from the sea by two rocky sills, showing no trace of ever having been
subject to the action of water. The general slope of the land is also opposed to
such a view, being inclined not seawards, but in the opposite direction, towards the
inland lakes. The salts of the shotts are of diverse composition, differing from
those of sea-water, and in certain places containing more sulphate of soda than
(1
Fig. 74. — Shott Melohioh aitd Projected Inland Sea.
Scale 1 : 1,300,000.
U Artesian Well. <J> Ordinary Well.
Rudaire's Survey,
^^-^— — ^— ^^-^^— ^— ^^^ 30 Miles.
marine salt. Nevertheless saline incrustations are found in some of these basins,
especially the Shott-el-Gharsa, which yields salt of a very fine quality.
The great Algerian shott and surrounding saline depressions lie below sea-
level, whence the hasty conclusion that by connecting them with the Gulf of
Cabes, the Sahara itself might be converted into a vast inland sea. Recent
measurements have shown that the area of the whole region lying at a lower
level than the Mediterranean scarcely exceeds 3,300 miles. Ilcnce the idea of
flooding the Sahara, advocated especially by Rudaire, can never be realised in our
days.
THE SHOTTS-AETESIAN WELLS.
219
A more practical project, already begun with the happiest results, aims at
recovering the reservoirs of water accumulated below the surface, and utilising
them for the extension of the old, or creation of new, oases. Although from the
remotest times the natives have carefully husbanded their supplies, many sources
Fig 75. — Aetesian Wells of Ziban ajtd the Wed Bjqh.
Scnle 1 : 2,250,000.
^ Artesian wells flowing. ° Wells yielding water • Ordinary stone and
X ,, „ with French plantations. on the surface. temporary wells.
30 Miles.
have completely dried up, and numerous places are known as Ain-Mita, or " Dead
Springs," indicating the victory of the sands over the fecundating waters of the
oases. In the everlasting struggle between the elements, incessantly modifying
the surface of the earth, the wilderness has continued to steadily encroach on
the arable lands, and in many districts depressions formerly flooded are now
destitute of all visible moisture. The local fauna itself shows that the climate has
220
NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
become drier, and the gradual desiccation of the land is attested by the
remains of organisms unable to sur^-ive under the changed conditions of their
environment.
Nevertheless the local populations, accepting the struggle against nature, have
constantly endeavoured to preserve
Fig. 76.— Baeeage of the Hamttj.
Scale 1 : 85^00.
their plantations, and "artesian'^
wells were sunk in North Africa
long before the practice was intro-
duced in Europe. But none of
these wells "lived" long, some
"dying" in five years, while a
few prolonged their existence,
under favourable conditions, for
eighty or even a hundred years.
Since 1856, however, scientific
methods have replaced the rude
processes of the inhabitants every-
where except in the regions still
subject to the influence of the
marabuts of Temacin. At a
dejath of 100 feet the engineer.
Jus, reached the Bahr Tahtani,
or " Lower Sea," which flows
beneath the dried-up bed of the
Wed Righ, and the inhabitants
of the Tamerna oasis, north of
Tugurt, beheld wdth surprise and
delight a spring suddenly well-
ing up and yielding over thirty
gallons per second. This source
received from the marabuts the
name of "Well of Peace," to
conmiemorate the treaty of friend-
ship henceforth cemented between
the Saharians and the French
creators of living waters.
Since this first essay, over a
hundred Artesian wells have been
sunk in the hydrological basin
of the Melghigh, and fresh
sources are being constantly developed. One of the most copious is that of
the Sidi Amran oasis, in the Wed Righ, north of Tugurt, which yields nearly
fifty gallons per second. The wells have an average depth of 230 feet, with a
5*2C
3,300 Yarda.
temperature varying from G5^ to 78 '^' F.
Sudden changes and even
total
CLHIATE OF ALGEEIA. 221
stoppage of tlie supplies sometimes occur, as in the Hodna district, in 1862
when an underground shock suppressed two wells and reduced the volume of a
third by one-half.
Thanks to this increase of irrigating waters, the oases have been largely extended
and M. EoUand alone has planted as many as forty thousand palms in reclaimed
districts. Other fruit trees have been doubled ; the crops have increased in pro-
portion, and new plants have been introduced in the gardens. New villao-es have
sprung up amid the palm groves ; the population of the Euaras has been doubled,
and the tents of many nomad tribes have been converted into fixed habitations
grouped round about some newly created oasis. The same process may also be
applied in many places to the development of thermal and mineral springs, thus
increasing the already abundant supply of medicinal waters in Algeria. It might
€ven be possible to utilise the subterranean sources for pisciculture, the wells of
Urlana, Mazer, and Sidi Amran having revealed the presence of several varieties
of fishes, crustaceans, and freshwater molluscs.
Efforts are also being made to prevent the waste of the surface waters, which
are lost by evaporation or infiltration in the sands and crevices of the rocks. So
early as the year 1851, a first barrage was constructed in the gorges of the Meurad,
above Marengo in the west Mitija plain. Since then large dykes have been raised
in the Macta basin, and for many years an extensive barrage has been in progress,
which is intended to intercept the waters of the Wed Hamiz south-east of Algiers.
Similar works are being erected in the Shahf basin or its afHuents, as well as on
other rivers of Algeria. On the completion of the schemes already projected, all
the streams rising in the uplands will be arrested at their entrance on the plains
by means of dams diverting the current to lateral channels. But these works,
some of which are stupendous monuments of human enterprise, are not unattended
with danger. The two great reservoirs of the Sig and the Habra have already
burst through their barriers, the tumultuous waters overflowing on the surrounding
plains, wasting the cultivated tracts and sweeping away houses and villages. But
the havoc caused by these disasters is partly compensated by the fresh supply of
alluvial matter thus spread over the exhausted soil.
Climate of Algeria.
The differences of climate correspond to those of the relief, aspect, and latitude
of the land. Each of the several zones — maritime strip, coast range, central
plateau, southern slope, and desert — has its special cHmate, variously modifj-ing
the shifting curves of temperature, moisture, and other meteorological pheno-
mena.
Algiers, lying about the middle of the north coast over against Provence, may
be taken as typical of the maritime region. On the whole, its climate may be
described as mild and temperate, although very variable,' owing to the sudden
changes of the atmospheric currents. According to M. Bulard's observations, its
mean temperature is about 65° F., falling in January to 54°, and in August, the
222
NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
hottest month, rising to 78°, thus showing an extreme deviation of not more
than 24°
The usual division of the year into four seasons is scarcely applicable to
Algeria, which has really not more than two well-defined periods — moist and
temperate from September to the end of May, hot and dry for the remaining
three months of the year. The position of Algeria on a coast completely exposed
to the sea breezes gives to the anemometric regime a paramount influence in the
distribution of heat, moisture, and atmospheric pressure. Here the -winds have
free play from all quarters, even from the interior, where the Sahel uplands
retard their progress without perceptibly modifying their direction. The sirocco,
or hot wind from the south, is tampered by the Aicinity of the sea, while
Fig. 77. — Raiktaxl of the Sahara in 1884.
Scaie 1 : 15,000,000.
Heavy rainfall of
20 inches.
Mean rainfall of
10 inches.
Rainless.
300 Miles.
the cold breezes from the north acquire a certain degree of heat during their
passage across the Mediterranean. Algeria lies beyond the zone of regular trade
winds ; but during the fine season light and pleasant land and sea breezes succeed
each other regularly along the coast, the former prevailing at night, the latter
during the day.
Elsewhere, owing to the radiation, the changes of temperature from night to
day are very considerable, the thermometer under the solar rays rising in some
places to 166° F., and falling in the hottest nights to 68° or 69° F., a discrepancy
of 98° within the twenty-four hours. The result is a great condensation of aque-
ous vapour, with abundant dews and frequent fogs during the night and early
morning, especially along the maritime districts. The rainfall itself is more
FLOEA OF ALGEKIA. 223
copious than is commonly supposed, tlie winds from every quarter being charged
with some degree of moisture. But the heaviest downpours and most violent
storms are brought by the north-west currents, which form a continuation of the
fierce Provencal mistral. On the east coast the annual rainfall varies from 24
to 60 inches, while the average, as recorded by the observatory of Algiers for the
years 1862 — 73, was found to be about 37 inches, a proportion much higher than
the mean for the whole of France. But for the whole of the hill region north of
the Sahara it would appear to be not more than 22 inches.
On the central plateaux, which for vast spaces present no obstacle to the free
play of the atmospheric currents, and where the geological structure of the soil is
everywhere the same, a great \miformity of climate prevails, although the oscilla-
tions of temperature between winter and summer are much greater than on the
coast. In winter the cold is very severe, and vast spaces are often covered with
snow, which in the depressions lies to a depth of many feet. But the summer
heats, although also very intense, are more endurable, owing to the dryness of the
atmosphere. Even in the Sahara, the solar radiation causes a fall of the tempera-
ture during the night from 150° down to 38° F. Here also dews are abundant,
but rain extremely rare, several years sometimes passing without a single shower,
at least according to the reports of the natives. But their statements can now
be rectified by the observations of meteorologists, who have recorded a mean rain-
fall of over 3 inches at Biskra during the period from 1878 to 1883, and six times
that quantity in the exceptional year 1884.
Flora of Algeria.
Although differing little from that of Western Tunis between Cape Bona and
the frontier, the Algerian flora presents more sharply defined divisions in its
several provinces, divisions due to the obstacles presented by mountain ranges and
plateaux to the diffusion of plants. The greatest variety of species is found in the
maritime zone and on the northern slopes of the coast ranges. Notwithstanding
the destructive action of fires and a reckless system of exploitation, veritable
forests stiU exist in this more favoured region. In the low-lying tracts and
along the riverain districts, poplar, ash, and aspen trees are matted together in
dense thickets by a network of creepers, while on the slopes the prevailing species
are the Halep pine, juniper, and other conifers. The suber, zeen {quercus Mirheckii)
and other varieties of the oak also cover extensive spaces, especially on the eastern
seaboard. The crests of the hills are often crowned with cedars differing little
from those of Lebanon, but approaching still nearer to the Cyprus variety. On the
moist and wooded slopes of Tlemcen the botanist Kremer has discovered a species
of poplar {populus Euphratica) found elsewhere only in Marocco and on the banks
of the Jordan and Euphrates. A variety of the oak also {quercm castaneofolia)
hitherto met only in Caucasia, is found spread over the Babor heights between
La Calle and Bougie ; while other species, such as the Australian eucalyptus, have
been more recently introduced by man from distant regions.
224
NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
But most of the Algerian forests, already wasted in the time of the Eomans,
and ao-ain destroyed by the charcoal-burners, have been replaced by extensive
tracts of brushwood, and of smaller growths, such as the myrtle, arbvitus, and
bu-nafa, or thapsia garf/rnu'ca, formerly so famous in Cyrenaica under the name of
silphium, and still highly prized in Algeria.
Above the maritime region and beyond the coast ranges, the changes in the
character of the vegetation are due less to altitude than to the aspect of the land,
and the proportion of moisture contained in the atmosphere. The olive, the
characteristic tree of the seaboard and of the slopes facing the Mediterranean,
scarcely reaches the upland plateaux, although it is still met on the Jebel Aures
and in the oases at their foot. The cork-tree and Halep pine disappear at the
same altitude as the olive, and no evergreen oaks are seen at a higher elevation
Fig. 78. — Forests of Algeeia.
Scale 1 : 9,500,000.
57"
L . of breenwich
Forests.
180 Miles.
than 5,000 feet. In the Jurjura cedar forests flourish at between 3,300 and 4,000
feet, and this plant attains a higher altitude than any other species. The only tree
that has adapted itself to the breezy and dry climate of the central plateaux, with
their great extremes of temperature, is the betum {pistacia atlantica), which at a
distance looks like an oak-tree. Here are also met a few tamarisks and arborescent
species growing in the hollows, but no other trees or shrubs except those planted
by the colonists round about the civil and military stations. The characteristic
vegetation of the plateaux are coarse grasses, especially of the stipa family, which
cover a space of about ten million acres altogether. Conspicuous amongst them
are the well-known alfa, or rather halfa {fitipa tenacissimo) , and the shi {artemisia
herha alba), which occupies extensive tracts between the Marocco and the Nile
deserts, and the dried leaf of which is used as a substitute for tobacco by the Arabs.
FLOEA OF ALGEEIA.
225
On the upland eastern plateaux, and especially in the districts frequented by the
Mememsha and Haracta tribes, the prevailing plant is the guethaf (atn'plex halimus),
which supplies an excellent fodder for the camel. A common species on the
plateaux is also the dis (ampelodesmtcs tenax), which resembles the half a grass, and
which is used by the Arabs for thatching their huts and for making cordage. The
terfas, or white truffle {tuber niveum), is widel}- diffused throughout the Oran
uplands and in the Hodna districts. Together vf\i\\he parmelia esculenfa, a species
of edible lichen known as " manna," it serves as a staple of food amongst the
natives.
IN'or is the Sahara itself so destitute of vegetation as is commonly supposed.
3esides the palms and undergrowth of the oases, such as fruit-trees, herbs, and
Fig. 79. — The Alfa Region.
Scale 1 : 9,600,000.
Alfa.
120 Miles.
Tegetables, hundreds of plants grow on the clayey, rocky, sandy, and marshy tracts
of the desert. But there is an absence of European species, and the chief affinities
are with the flora of Egypt, Palestine, Arabia, and Southern Persia. Altogether
the Saharian flora comprises 560 species, of which about a hundred are indigenous.
But the number might be easily increased, and several useful varieties have already
been introduced by Europeans in districts where water is available. The sands
themselves might be clothed with vegetation, and several species growing spon-
taneously on the dunes, help to bind the shifting masses and convert them into
solid hills. Amongst them is the drin (arthmthcnim imngens), the grain of which
in times of scarcity serves as a substitute for barley.
226 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
Fauna of Algeria.
The Algerian fauna, like its flora, forms part of the Mediterranean zone, thus
still attesting the former connection of Mauritania with Europe. Nearly all the
species are, or at least were at one time, common to the two regions now separated
by the Strait of Gibraltar. But as we advance southwards the analogy gradually
disappears, first for mammals, and then for birds. In the southern districts a con-
tinually increasing resemblance is observed, on the other hand, between the Algerian
species and those of Nubia, Abyssinia, and Senaar. The intervening desert was
certainly in former times less extensive and more fertile than at present, so that
many animals may have migrated from Central Africa to Mauritania. But for
shells, which move more slowly and with greater difficulty across unfavourable
tracts, the normal distribution has been maintained. Hence the contrast in this
respect between the Algerian and Sudanese faunas is complete.
According to Bourguignat, six parallel faunas follow successively from north to
south, in Algeria — those of the seaboard, of the coast ranges, of the central
plateaux, of the southern ranges, of a now-dried-up maritime zone, and lastly, of the
Sahara. Since the separation of the European and North African areas, both have
become modified, less, however, by the development of new varieties than through
the disappearance of old forms. The loss has been greatest in Europe, where
civilisation was earlier diffused ; but Mauritania also has lost some of its species
even within the historic period. There can be no doubt that the elephant was cap-
tured in the Numidian forests two thousand years ago ; but it has now disappeared,
together with the bear, which from numerous local traditions and legends appears to
have survived in the wooded heights of the Upper Seybouse down to the period of
the conquest. Shaw speaks of the bear as still living in the Algerian forests ;
Horace Vernet saw a freshly dressed bearskin ; and hunters are mentioned who
are said to have recently pursued this animal. The deer is also disappearing, while
the ape family is represented only by a single species, the ^j«Y//e«<.s innuiis, found
also on the rock of Gibraltar.
On the other hand, many wild beasts long extinct in Europe stiU hold their
ground in North Africa. Such are the lion, panther, wild boar, hyaena, jackal,
and Barbary wild cat, the two first being numerous especially in the dense thickets
of the province of Constantino, and in the hilly and wooded districts south of the
Shelif river, near the Tunisian frontier. But the ostrich, bustard, and mouflon, till
recently abundant on the central plateaux, have everywhere become very rare since
the French conquest. The gazelle, of which there are three varieties, is also
retiring towards the Sahara, although occasionally compelled by want of water to
return to the southern highlands.
But although the upland plateaux have thus ceased to be a great hunting-
ground, the local feudal families still keep their falcons as of old, and also preserve
a famous breed of greyhounds, which arc higlily esteemed, wliilc other dogs have
remained in a semi-savage state, prowling about the camping-grounds and justly
INHABITANTS OF ALGERIA. 227
feared by the traveller. But of all the companions of the Algerian hunter, none
are held in such estimation as the horse, a breed distinguished by its beauty,
elegance, high spirit, combined with great gentleness, sobriety, and endurance
under fatigue and changes of temperature.
In the Algerian Sahara several reptiles occur of the same species as those of
Nubia and Upper Egypt. Such are the horned viper, and the large waran, or
Egyptian monitor, some of which are over 3 feet long and look like small crocodiles.
They are much feared on account of the magic power attributed to them, and like
the chameleon, they are supposed to be the deadly enemies of the horned viper.
Another remarkable saurian is the dobb, a lizard frequenting the palm groves,
whose delicate flesh is eaten by the natives and its skin used for making pouches
and boxes. The crocodile, supposed to have entirely disappeared from Mauritania
since the historic period, still survives in the running and stagnant waters of the
desert. It was first discovered by Aucapitaine in the Wed Jeddi, and has since
been found in the upper affluents of the Igharghar.
Insectivorous birds exist in vast numbers, and to this circumstance must be
attributed the comparative rareness of grubs and butterflies. The locust {oedipoda
cruciata), which was one of the chief causes of the terrible famine of 1867, swarms
in myriads only in exceptional years. In ordinary times their numbers are kept
down by the stork, " the agriculturists' providence." On the Setif plateaux the
curious spectacle has presented itself of thousands of storks drawn up in line of
battle and attacking a living wall of locusts.
Inhabitants of Algeria.
The changes that have taken place since historic times amongst the human
population of Algeria, are even still greater than those affecting the animal and
vegetable species. But the question at once presents itself, do they, like these
forms, constitute a common domain comprising both the northern and southern
seaboards of the West Mediterranean ? Is the character of unity observed in the
organic world throughout this region, retained at least in the fundamental elements
of its present inhabitants ? Although no positive answer can yet be given, there
can be no doubt that numerous migrations have taken place and frequent relations
been maintained between the opposite coastlands. At some epoch before the dawn
of history, the whole region was certainly occupied by peoples enjoying a common
civilisation, whether they were all of one or diverse origin.
Throughout Mauritania, and especially in the province of Constantino towards
the Tunisian frontier, megalithic monuments are met with similar to those existing in
the West of Europe. Tens of thousands of such remains have already been found,
and others are constantly discovered, although they are too often destroyed to
procure materials for the house-builder and road-maker. In the Mejana plain,
west of Setif, M. Payen estimates at ten thousand the number of menhirs scattered
singly or in groups over the steppe. They look like a multitude changed into
stone, the mean height of the blocks being that of a man of low stature. The so-
228 NOETH-WEST APRICA.
called kbur-el-juliala, or " pagan graves," are mostly of smaller size than tlie
dolmens of like origin still existing in Brittany and La Vendee, from which it has
been inferred that the megalithic industry of Algeria was either just beginning
or already declining. But the officers engaged in the triangulation of the district
between La Calle and Suk-Ahras have discovered sepulchral slabs of enormous size,
scarcely inferior to those of Ga\T'innis and Lockmariaker in Brittany.
Besides the slabs and raised stones, there occur all sorts of megalithic structures :
the cromlech or circle of stones, the cairn, the barrow crowned with a dolmen,
terraces encircled by flights of steps, underground chambers hewn in the live rock,
cupped stones, sacrificial altars ; rows of /lanuts, or subterranean cells ; kushas, or
tombs in the form of cylindrical ovens topped with a large slab ; hasinas, or mounds
composed of concentric layers rising in the form of step pyramids. In the
Algerian Sahara large sepulchral urns have been found placed mouth to mouth, the
head and body occupying one, the legs the other.
The remains of resinous wood associated with earthenware, and still more the
worked flints scattered here and there, not only on the heights skirting the TVed
Righ, but even on the hamadas and in the desert between Tugurt and Ghadames,
are amongst the facts regarded by geologists as imdoubted indications of recent
changes in the climate of Africa. Near Hammam-el-Meskhutin, the Roknia graves,
belonging partly to the bronze age, contain thousands of molluscs disposed in hori-
zontal layers. According to Bourguignat, many species then living in the country
have ceased to exist, or have become very rare ; one species even became gradually
modified during the period of the Roknia tombs. Since that epoch of worked flints
and polished hatchets, used by peoples living in a more humid climate, the mega-
lithic industry has been continued throughout the historic period down to recent
times. In many burial-places the rude stone implements of the natives have been
found associated with Roman stelae, shafts of columns, slabs covered with Libyan
or bilingual inscriptions.
Under the kbur-el-jiihalas and kushas, numerous skeletons have been found,
nearly always resting on the left side and with the knees bent up to the breast.
The mode of interment is always the same, whatever be the objects deposited with
the dead — coarse earthenware, flint instruments, silver, copper, bronze, or iron
rings and armlets. Not many skulls have been collected ; but those already
measured suffice to show that at this prehistoric epoch, before the arrival of
Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, or Arabs, there existed amongst those now
collectively grouped as aborigines two perfectly distinct cranial types. Both were
dolichocephalic, or long-headed ; but one was a tall, the other a short race, the
former being further distinguished by the posterior position of the crown and of
the diameter of greatest breadth, as well as by more prominent zygomatic arches,
nasal apophyses, and frontal ridges. The same cranial conformation still charac-
terises most of the Biskri and of the nomads surrounding the oases. These men
also difPer from their neighbours in the structure of the skeleton, which when
leaning against a wall prevents them from applying the outstretched arms close
to the surface, a considerable space being always left behind the humerus.
ARAB MENDICANT, BISKRA NEGRESS AND EL-KANTARA WOMAN.
INHABITANTS OF ALGERIA. 229
The second type found in the old graves resembles that of the present inhabi-
tants of the oases. These have a well-balanced cranium, straight features, and
arms disposed like those of Europeans ; but they are otherwise very slim, and of
low stature. People of the same type are found in the more elevated parts of the
Jurjura range, where they would seem to have taken refuge, together with the
monkey tribes, that have also retired from the plains to these inaccessible uplands.
During the first years of the French occupation, all the natives were confounded
under the common designation of Arabs ; nor is the distinction between Arabs and
Berbers even now always observed. On the other hand, those who clearly recog-
nise the great contrast between the two races, might easily fall into the opposite
error of regarding all the non-Arab elements as forming a single ethnical group
usually known by the name of Berbers. But these also present different types,
and a closer inspection soon shows that many peoples of diverse origin have con-
tributed to form the so-called Berber population. Besides the contrast presented
by groups differing in stature, disposition of the limbs, and cranial formation, there
is also that of the complexion and colour of the hair. Although the prevailing
colour is brown, in all the tribes men are foimd with light hair, and some even with
blue eyes. This fair element, first described by Shaw, is nimierously represented
in the Aures district, and especially near Khenshela and in the Jebel Sheshar.
According to Faidherbe, it constitutes about a tenth of the whole population in the
province of Constantino.
The Denhajas, who occupy a tributary valley of the Safsaf south-east of
PhiHppeville, claim to be sprung of fair ancestors, although from subsequent cross-
ings with their neighbours most of them have acquired dark hair and eyes. They
call themselves Ulad-el-Juhala, "Sons of Pagans," and until recently they still
raised on their graves huge blocks (suob), round which religious rites were cele-
brated. This circumstance lends some support to the hypothesis attributing the
Algerian megalithic structures to a fair race, which came from the north through
the Iberian peninsula and across the Strait of Gibraltar. But this race has also
been identified with the Gaulish descendants of the mercenaries charged by the
Romans with the defence of the southern frontiers, as well as with the Vandals
driven by Belisarius to the Aures highlands in the year 533.
Even the Romans themselves do not appear to be entirely extinct. The
remains of their towns and miKtary stations are met by the hundred; many
thousands of their inscriptions have been collected, and on the plateaux of
Constantino they seem to be still more present in their works than the French
colonists themselves. Here their ruined cities are more numerous and far more
extensive than the European towns of recent foundation. Even in this direction
they had occupied all the highlands of Aurasius, and penetrated beyond them far
into the desert. South of the province of Algiers, their monuments are also met
on the verge of the Sahara ; and farther west they had built many cities, at least on
the Mediterranean slope of the Tell. Their colonists, settled mostly on the upland
plateaux of Numidia and the Mauritanian Sitifis, that is, in the regions where the
climate was most suited for the preservation of their race, must certainly have left
230
NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
descendants in Algeria. The Roman type is even said to be well preserved
amongst the Ulad-el-Asker, or " Sons of Soldiers," in eastern Kabylia. Although
good Mussulmans, the inhabitants of Tebessa still call themselves " Romans ; "
nor in their mouths is the term " Rumi " confused with that of " Christian," as
amongst the other Mohammedans of Algeria. Roman coins were still current in
Algiers when that town was taken by the French in 1842. Of the ten sections of
the Amamra tribe, in the northern districts of Aures, two are supposed to be of
Roman and three of Shawia (Berber) descent, while the others were formed under
marabut influences since the Mussulman invasion.
But whatever proportion of the indigenous population may be of Roman or
European origin, the local traditions, as well as certain historic evidences, point to
the East as the home of most of the immigrants. From Asia came the ancient
Libou (Libyans), who gave their name to the whole continent, and who have been
identified with the Luata, or Liuata, one of the powerful tribes of Barbary at the
Fig. 80. — Chief Ancient Cities of Algebia.
RMle 1 • 10.000.000.
; L. rf of ureenw'cH
180 Jlilea.
time of the Arab conquest. After reducing the peoples of Mauritania and driving
the aborigines from the plains to the upland valleys, the Mohammedan invaders
continued to follow the general westward movement of migration. At the same
time the changes of soil and climate, combined with the shiftings of popvdation
caused by these events, naturally tended to modify the habits of the peoples, in
one place softening in another accentuating their mutual contrasts. At their first
arrival the Berber intruders can have differed little from their Arab successors.
But while wars, invasions, and marauding expeditions fostered a nomad existence,
defeat and the imposition of regular tribute compelled many wandering com-
mimities to adopt a settled life. Thus their daily pursuits are not always a
certain proof of their ethnical affinities. Many ages before the Arab invasion the
Numidiuns, from whom the present so-called " Berber " population is partly
descended, were themselves "nomads," as is probably indicated by their very
INHABITANTS OF ALGEEIA. 231
name. Nevertheless racial differences are still at least roughly indicated by the
occupations of the inhabitants, the nomad pastors being mostly Arabs, while the
term Berber is usually applied in a collective sense to the settled peasantry.
This old ethnical appellation of Berber is still borne in a special manner by
one of the Atlas tribes in Marocco. But as applied to an aggregate of peoples,
whose diverse origins have been sought in Mauritania, West Europe, and the
Asiatic regions bordering on Egypt, it has lost all definite meaning, except in a
linguistic sense. It now indicates in a general way all those peoples which speak,
or which, during the historic period, are known to have spoken, languages belong- ^
ing to the Libyan family. This form of speech, already current amongst the
Tamahu figured on the Egyptian paintings, has been preserved under its old name
for thousands of years. Amongst the Tuaregs and the various Sahara peoples, it is
still called Tamahag, Tamahug, or Tamashek, and dialects akin to the Targui
are spoken by a large number of other communities from the western oases of
Egypt to the Atlantic seaboard.
The Berber linguistic family shows some affinity with the Semitic, not in its
vocabulary so much as in its guttural sounds, its grammar, and syntax. Although
constituting, with Coptic, the group of so-called Hamitic languages, it presents all
the characteristics of an Eastern origin. Relying mainly on these resemblances of
speech, certain writers have in fact endeavoured, rightly or wrongly, to establish a
common origin for all the indigenous races of North Africa and Western Asia.
But great differences have been observed even among the two chief ethnical
groups in Algeria itself. The true Semites represented by the Ai-abs present the
most striking contrast to the various peoples previously settled in the country.
The Kabyles of Jurjura, taken as tj^ical Berbers, have a less oval head and face,
broader and fuller features, less regular and less retreating forehead, less arched
eyebrows than the Arabs. The nose is seldom aquiline and often short and thick,
the chin firm, the mouth rather large, the lips strong or thick. The physiognomy
usually lacks the delicacy noticed in the Arabs, although the expression is more
frank, the eye more animated, the muscular system more compact, the body less
pKant, but more robust and more firmly planted on the ground. The Kabyles are
also usually of a somewhat lighter complexion, which may be attributed to their
more settled existence. On the whole, they differ but little from Southern
Europeans, and by a mere change of costume thousands amongst them might be
taken for natives of Auvergne or Limoges.
No less marked from the moral standpoint is the contrast between the two
elements, although this may be more readily explained by differences of environ-
ment and pursuits. Although comprising many essentially nomad tribes, such as
the Saharian Tuaregs, the Berbers show a preference for a settled life wherever
favoured by the physical conditions. Mostly upland agriculturists, they necessarily
differ in habits, social and political institutions, from the restless nomads of the
plains. The Kabyles are distinguished by their unflagging industry, enterprising
spirit, and common sense. They are inquisitive, fond of discussion, eager for
information, susceptible of admiration and wonder, while the Arab affects a passive
282
NORTH- WEST AFRICA.
indifference to all things. They are little disposed to mystic contemplation, and
although superstitious, because ignorant, they give little play to the religious
sentiment in their daily pursuits and social relations. Hence they lack the figured
speech of the Semite, despising the graces of style, the subtle metaphor, and refined
expression of the Arab poets. On the other hand, their life of toil inspires them
with a feeling of pride and self-respect, combined with a high sense of individual
worth. They demand above all things to be treated with justice, and those whose
communal autonomy has been respected by the French, regard and treat each other
in all respects as equals.
Although, thanks to their agricultural occupation, the Algerian Berbers have
on the whole risen to a higher degree of civilisation than the Arabs, the latter still
Fig-. 81. — Chief Tetbes op Algeeia.
Scale 1 ■ 9,600,000.
"Sf^y.
i5tP-<
L . of Greenwich
B. fieni.
0 Oulad, Ouled O.S. Oulad Sidi.
i_— ^—1 ^_ 120 Miles
in many respects exercise a preponderating influence over them. As descendants
of a conquering race, they still preserve some of the prestige of past triumphs.
By them the religion of Islam was also introduced, and to them the Kabyles are
indebted for a knowledge of letters and of the Koran. Notwithstanding their
nomad existence, the Arabs of the plains enjoy to a larger extent the advantages
derived from a greater relative degree of national cohesion. Although more
numerous, the Berbers driven to the highlands nowhere form a compact nationality
capable of resisting the pressure of the surrounding Arab populations ; hence in
every part of Algeria Berber tribes are found, which have become assimilated to
the Arabs in speech, which have often lost their racial traditions, and which have
even gone so far as to concoct false genealogical tables, tracing their descent to
some conquering tribe from the Ai'abian peninsula. Even those that have
KABYLE rAmLY GROUP.
INHABITANTS OP ALGEEIA.
233
preserved the national idiom, such as the Kabyles of Jurjura, the Shawias of Aures,
a few groups of the Dahra district and Marocco frontier, have adopted a large
number of Arab words and forms of speech. They have also everywhere abandoned
the old Tefinagh orthographic system, inscriptions in which still occur in various
parts of Algeria. Hence all instruction is conveyed through Arabic, which is at
once the reKgious, polite, and literary tongue, but which no Berber ever succeeds
in pronouncing with perfect accuracj^
The patronymic Ait (in South Marocco, Ida) is applied exclusively to the
Berbers, many of whose tribes have also adopted the Arabic Bent, indicating f amily
relationship ; while the term Aulad, or more commonly Ulad, Vied, is restricted in
Algeria almost exclusively to communities of Arab descent. But there is no
Fig. 82. — Aeabs and Berbers of Algeeia.
Scale 1 : 10,000,000.
^^ss^-^,.j
IZ3 13
White Berbers of White Berbers Black Berbeis of Arabs. Shotta-
Berber speech. of Arab speech. Arab speech.
J
180 Miles.
absolute rule for the use of these terms, and the Ulad Abdi of Aures are
undoubtedly Berbers. Hence great uncertainty prevails regarding the classification
of the Algerian races, and while some writers estimate the Berber population at
upwards of two millions, of whom nearly nine hundred thousand still speak a
Libyan dialect, others, with Pimel, reduce the whole number to no more than a
million. The diversities and contrasts caused by language and pursuits, by
voluntary or forced displacements, render any general description impossible, so
that each lowland or highland group must be studied apart. Of the thousand or
eleven hundred tribes enumerated in Algeria, some comprise distinct racial elements ;
and even amongst the minor groups of Dwars, Dasheras, Arsh, or Ferkas, dis-
AFRICA I. *'
234 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
crepancies may be foxrnd within the same Kbaila, or federal league. Many
communities are a mere confused aggregate of families of diverse colour and
orio-in, and such heterogeneous groups are found in the suburbs of all the large
towns.
The Algerian Arabs.
The bulk of the Arab tribes are concentrated in the western district, where
Mascara may be regarded as their natural capital. Abd-el-Kader, himself a perfect
specimen of the Arab tN^pe, selected this place as the seat of his empire, and here
all the natives of pure Arab descent still live under the tent. In the time of
Faidherbe, the Arab population, including the Moors of the towns, numbered
altogether not more than one-fifth, or about six hundred thousand souls. But this
estimate would be too low if it comprised all those who possess genealogies tracing
their descent from the Prophet's family, or from some noted hero of Islam.
The Algerian Arabs have generally a dull or brown complexion, black hair,
scant beard, fine teeth, aquiHne nose, broad movable nostrils, black eyes, prominent
superciliary arches, high skull, open rounded brow. The legs and neck are
disproportionately long, and the chest too narrow, while the women are all com-
paratively imdersized. In public the Arabs are grave, dignified, and impassible ;
but within the social circle they readily lay aside their assumed air of solemnity,
converse and gesticulate with great vehemence. They are indifferent agriculturists,
to whom a settled existence is always repugnant, who still love the free life of the
steppe, with its boundless horizon, shifting mirage, and ever-changing camping-
grounds. To understand and sympathise with them, here they must be seen and
studied, for here alone they are happy, hospitable, and genial; here alone they
become confidential, and relate with glowing enthusiasm the great deeds of their
forefathers. Descendants of warriors who overran all North Africa, from Egypt
to Marocco, they naturally despise the degraded races dwelling in fixed abodes, and
their ideas regarding property are far from harmonising with the niceties of the
code introduced by the new masters of the land. Hence frequent wrangling and
strife, aggravated at times by the instinctive hatreds of race. In any case, the
Arabs seldom become landed proprietors. The ground, which has no definite
limits, belongs in common to the whole tribe ; but the social organisation being
always feudal, the tribe itself is represented by its chief, who thus becomes the
virtual master of the land.
"As soon as there are three of you," says the Prophet, "elect a chief."
Religious fanaticism also tends to foster discussion among the Arab tribes, who are
much more inclined to mysticism than their Kabyle neighbours. Most of them
are sincere believers, obejdng the precepts of Mohammed, and muttering in a low
voice the passages from the Koran which command the extermination of the
Infidel.
Thus it happens that by his manner of thought and sentiments, as well as his
habits and traditions, the tribal Arab feels little inclined to adapt himself to the
changed conditions developed round about him by the settlement of the land, the
THE ALGEEIAN AEABS.
235
foundation of towns and villages, the construction of roads and railways. He
gradually becomes an alien in the land conquered by his forefathers, and in many
districts he pines and perishes, making room for men of other races. It may be
stated in a general way that the Arabs resist these adverse influences best on the
boundless upland plateaux, where but few French civil and military stations have
yet been founded. But in the to^Tis and urban districts they tend gradually to
Fig. 83.— AfiAB Type : Agha of Ttjgttet.
disappear, killed off by ^-ice, misery, lack of confidence in the future, and the
exactions of their chiefs.
The same fate is overtaking the so-called Moors, or " Hadri," that is, the more
civilised Mussulmans dwelling in the coast towns, under the very eyes of their
foreign masters. But their rapid disappearance may be partly due to the
instability of a heterogeneous race comprising the most diverse elements introduced
286 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
bv former wars, piracy, slavery, polygamy. Thus have been thrown together
Berbers, Syrians, Circassians, Albanians, Spaniards, Balearic Islanders, Italians,
Provencals, Haussas, Bambaras, Fidahs, and even groups of Gipsies (Gsani,
Guezzani), who arrived contemporaneously with the Andalusian Moors expelled
from Spain. The Kulugli (Kur-Ogli), the offspring of Turks and native women,
were also formerly very numerous in the coast towns and in certain inland villages ;
but these half-castes have already been almost entirely absorbed in the general
Mussulman population of the towns.
The Negroes, Jews, and Europeans.
A large strain of Negro blood may everywhere be recognised among the
inhabitants of Algeria, and whole tribes even among the highland Kabyles betray
clear proofs of crossing between the aborigines of the seaboard and the Sudanese
Negroes. Perhaps more than one-half of the Algerians who pass for Arabs or
Berbers are of mixed descent ; but pure Negroes are now rarely met, owing to
the almost complete interruption of direct intercourse across the Sahara between
the Mediterranean seaboard and "Western Sudan. Hence, since the suppression of
the slave trade in 1848, the local Nigritian elements are gradually disappearing,
while the children of free immigrants from Sudan seldom survive. The Negroes
settled in Algeria are all distinguished by their love of work, finding employ-
ment chiefly as agricultural labourers, stone-breakers, watchmen, or domestic
servants.
The Jews, far less nimaerous in Algeria than in Marocco, form nevertheless an
important element of the population, owing to their spirit of solidarity, their
money-making instincts, and the part they take as French citizens in the political
administration of the country. The European immigrants, constituting a seventh
part of the whole population, have already become the predominant race in
Algeria. Thanks to their higher culture, combined with the exercise of political
power, they naturally occupy all the chief civil and military positions, and hence-
forth control the destinies of the country. The French have resumed the work
of the old Roman rulers, but under conditions greatly modified by the progress of
events. Except in "Western Europe and in Mauritania, where it reached the
ocean, the Roman world was hemmed in on all sides by unknown regions and
hostile populations ; foreign pressure was constantly felt on the frontiers, and the
political equilibrium was at last overthrown by the migration of the barbarians.
Now the conditions are changed, and the modern European world, instead of being
surroimded, everywhere encircles the less cultured populations, incessantly en-
croaching on their domain, and transforming them by the introduction of new
industries and new usages. If they do not become entirely assimilated, they must
at least share in the same culture, and especially to the French colonists on the
Mediterranean seaboard falls the lot of carrying on this conscious or unconscious
work of civilisation throughout the regions of North Africa. The results iilready
achie-ved since 1830 are considerable ; from year to year the face of the land
mmmi
^
*
^J
^
o
I
o
TOPOGEAPHY. 237
becomes modified by the foundation of new towns, the spread of agriculture, tbe
development of the network of roads and railways. Although the European
element is still in the minority, its influence is already everywhere visible from
the seaboard to the upland plateaux and the verge of the desert.
Topography.
The traveller visiting Algeria is surprised at the slight contrast presented by
its towns and those of the mother country. But for the palms and bamboos
adorning the public gardens, the Moors and Arabs mingling with the crowd on
the quays and in the streets, he might find it difficult to believe that he had really
crossed the Mediterranean. The quarters built by the French architects seem to
have been modelled on those of Marseilles ; almost everywhere the picturesque
Arab houses are masked by streets with regular and commonplace facades ; and
the stranger may reside for a long time in a modern Algerian town without
having ever to penetrate into those labyrinths of dwellings which recall an already
antiquated epoch.
But extensive tracts may still be traversed for hours together without meeting
a single human habitation. Such on the eastern plateaux is the district drained
by the Mejerda and its affluent the Wed Melleg, and comprising a total area of
about 4,000 square miles. Standing at a mean elevation of over 3,500 feet,
endowed with a healthy climate and fertile soil, and forming the converging
point of the trade routes between the coast and the desert, this at present almost
uninhabited region presents one of the most promising fields for future colonisation.
Here the remains of Roman settlements are scarcely less numerous than in the
neighbouring territory of Tunis, and since their complete reduction about the
middle of the century, European immigrants have again begim to find their way
to these breezy uplands. They are at present occupied by three distinct tribal
groups — the Nememshas in the south, the Ulad Sidi Yahia-ben-Thaleb in the
centre, and in the north the Hanenshas — all of Berber stock, more or less mingled
with Arab blood since the invasion of the eleventh century.
The town of Kalaa-es-Senam, standing on an isolated table of the plateau, is a
stronghold of the Hanenshas, who since their final reduction in 1871, have
maintained a peaceful bearing towards the new French settlers. But the most
important place in this region is Tehessa, the ancient Teveste, whose many natural
advantages seem to ensure it a brilliant future. Although dating only from the
time of Vespasian, its favourable strategic and commercial position soon rendered
Teveste a flourishing town of some forty thousand inhabitants. Notwithstanding its
destruction by the Vandals and many subsequent \acissitudes, it still preserves
some imposing Eoman or Byzantine remains, such as the ramparts with thirteen
•anking towers, a magnificent triumphal arch, an aqueduct restored by the French,
numerous tombs, and a temple of Minerva (?) now converted into a Christian
church. The French citadel is entirely built of blocks taken from the old struc-
tures, and the routes converging on Tebessa are still the old Roman roads, one of
238
NOETH-WEST AFEIGA.
which, runnino- through Mascula and Diana towards Sitifis, presents the appearance
of an Appian Way *' with its temples, porticoes, and other monuments.
North of Tebessa there are no centres of colonisation until we reach the
Mejerda basin. In the intervening tract, where the vestiges occur of no less than
a hundred and fiftv Roman towns or hamlets, the only French stations are the
so-called horj, constructed at considerable expense along the Tunisian frontier, and
rendered nearly useless since the line of military defences has been advanced to
Kef, in the territory of the regency. In the upper Melleg valley the chief station
qn the route between Tebessa and Constantino is the village of Meskiana, in a
district covered with prehistoric and Roman ruins. Formerly the whole of this
Fig-. 84.— Suk-Aheas and its Entibojis.
Scale 1 : 121,000.
\^^
N#^/^
:h 7''55'
region was covered with olive groves, as is evident from the oil-presses, remains of
which occur in every Roman farmstead.
Suk-Ahras, the chief place on the frontier plateau, occupies the site of the
ancient Thagastc, the birthplace of the famous Austin, bishop of Hippo. Until
1852 a mere military station threatened by the powerful Hanensha tribe, Suk-
Ahras has since become a flourishing town, as the chief centre of trade and inter-
course between the two ports of Bona and Tunis. Here large tracts have already
been brought under cultivation, and the slopes of the hills, recently overgrown
with scrub, are now imder crops or planted with vineyards. Of Roman antiquities
TOPOGEAPHY.
239
nothing survives except a few inscriptions and shapeless blocks ; but the line of
railway, here constructed through a series of deep cuttings and the Fej-el-Moktha
tunnel, across the hills and down the winding Seybouse Valley, is a remarkable,
monument of modern engineering skill.
The southern plateaux beyond the gorges of the Mejerda river abound in
Roman remains, such as those of Tagitra, now Taura, near Ain-Guettar ; Mdaurush,
the ancient Madaiira, birthplace of the rhetorician Apulaeus ; Tifesh, the Roman
Tipasa ; and near the sources of the Mejerda, Khemissa, identified with Thuhursicum
Niimidarum.
The northern slope of the moimtains running north of Suk-Ahras to the
Xhumirian highlands gi\^ birth to several copious streams collected in the Maf rag
Fig. 85.— La Calle.
Scale 1 : 20,ono
8°9S'
L ofLbreenvvicK
8° 97
Oto 16
Feet.
Depths.
16 to 32
Feet.
32 Feet and
upwards.
550 Yards.
basin, which, although at present almost uninhabited, seems destined to become
one of the most populous districts in Algeria. At present the only town in this
region is La Calle, which lies beyond the Mafrag basin on a creek flowing to the
Mediterranean, and separated from the interior by an amphitheatre of steep hills.
This seaport, which is connected by a difficult route with Bona, was long a nest of
corsairs ; but a himdred and fifty years before the conquest, the rocky headland
on which stood the old town had already become French territory. The trading
station founded here in 1560 by MarseiUes merchants was removed in 1C94 to
Mers-el-K/ierraz, which became the port of La Calle, where a small colony, recruited
chiefly from the French prisons, held its ground till the close of the eighteenth
240 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
;. i^
Centurv. During the wars of the Empire the English purchased this station from
the natives, but restored it to France in 1816. Although the oldest French settle-
ment in Algeria, La Calle is still the least French in its European population,
three-fourths of whom are Italians, chiefly from Naples and Sicily. The coral
'fishery, the chief industry on this coast, has suffered much by the introduction of
modern dredging gear, and is now largely replaced by the trade in sardines, large
quantities of which are here cured and exported to Naples and the south of Italy.
In rough weather the harbour of La Calle is almost inaccessible to shipping ;
but works have been undertaken or projected which, when carried out, will afford
'complete shelter from the winds and surf.
Some six miles east of La Calle, the Tunisian frontier is guarded by the fortified
station of Um-et-TehuI, which occupies the lower slope of a mountain abounding in
argentiferous lead deposits, at present worked by about three hundred miners,
mostly from Piedmont. From 2,500 to 3,000 tons of ore are yearly forwarded by
a small local railway to Mesida, and there shipped for Europe. In the district
between La Calle and the Tunisian frontier have been found the largest dolmens
and the most numerous Latin and Berber bilingual inscriptions.
At the mouth of the extensive Seybouse Valley stands the famous aty of Bona,
and at the source of the Sherf , its chief headstream, the modern town of Ahi Beicla
("White Spring"), which dates only from the year 1848. North-west of this
place, which lies midway between Constantino and Tebessa, is situated the
important mart of Um-el-Buagi, much frequented by the powerful Haracta Berber
tribe.
In the Zenati river valley, usually called Hamdan, forming with the Sherf the
main stream of the Seybouse, the chief centre of population is the commune and
town of Wed Zenati. The whole of this district, including Ain-er-Regada and
Ain-el-Ahid, has been conceded to a financial company, and constitutes a vast
domain of some 250,000 acres, of which 185,000 are leased to a single tenant.
On the "Wed Hamdan, a short distance above its junction with the Sherf, are
the houses and railway station of Hammam-cl-ircskhut/iin, or " Bath of the
Accursed." At this point the bed of a streamlet is occupied by a " petrified
cascade," or mass of calcareous concretions over thirty feet high, formed by a
number of tiny falls charged with lime, which have here deposited incrustations in
diverse colours — red, violet, blue, or grey, and here and there sparkling like fresh-
fallen snow. These copious springs discharge nearly four hundred gallons per
second, at a mean temperature of from 220° to 230° F. The concretions, which
are of a somewhat coarse texture, are so rapidly precipitated that the position of
the cascade is continually advancing, and fresh rills have constantly to be formed
for the service of the ponds established along its sides.
The saline and ferruginous thermal waters of Ilammam-el-Meskhuthin are
utilised by a military and a civil hospital, the latter frequented especially by the
Jews, and this station is destined sooner or later to become one of the chief
therapeutic establishments in Algeria. It takes its Roman name of Aquw
Tibilitan(B from the town of Tihili or Annuna, whose ruins lie some 6 miles to the
TOPOGEAPHY. 241
south-west, on the route connecting the villages of Clauzel and Wed Zenati. The
a
fH ilii i!
neighbouring cliff of Hajar-el-Khenga is covered with curious sculptures, amongst
242 NORTH-TV^ST AFRICA.
which may be recognised figures of men, dogs, cattle, and an ostrich. Farther
north Avas the site of Boknia, in a district strewn with dolmens and other pre-
historic monuments, including over three thousand graves, to which the natives
apply the term /taiiut, or " shop." From these have been recovered some
skeletons of great interest for the study of the various Algerian races.
A hill on the right bank of the Seybouse, below the confluence of the Sherf
and Zenati, is occupied by the town of Cruelma, heir to the name, if not the site, of
the Roman Calama, where Punic was still spoken in the fifth century. Enclosed
by a verdant belt of vineyards and olive groves, Guelma, which stands on the border
of the Arab and Berber territories, is one of the pleasantest places in Algeria.
Over its valle}' are dotted the picturesque hamlets of Ain-Tuta, Heliopolis, Petit, and
Millesimo, and in the neighbourhood are the copious mineral springs of Hammam-
el-Beida, in a basin surrounded with Roman ruins embowered in foliage.
The charming village of Duvider commands the right bank of the Seybouse
opposite the junction of the two railways from Algiers and Tunis. Thanks to
the facilities of communication and the fertility of the soil, numerous European
settlements hav6 sprung up in the Lower Seybouse Valley. Such are Barral,
Mondovi, noted for its tobacco, Diizerville, Wed Besbes, Merdes or Combes, Zerizer,
Bandon, Morris, and Blaiidan, and in the neighbouring- Mebuj a valley the town of
Penthievre.
Bona — Herbillon.
These stations become more numerous as we approach the city of Bona, which,
although preserving the name of the Roman Hippon {Hippo), the Zfbbn of the
Carthaginians, does not occupy the actual site of that ancient city. Hippo Regius,
where the famous Bishop Augustine resided for thirty-five years, and which was
overthrown by the Vandals in 431, the year after his death, stood over a mile
from the present town, on a hill commanding a fine prospect of the blue Mediterra-
nean waters and surrounding district. A few ruins of the Glisia Rumi, or
" Church of the Romans," arc still scattered on the side of the hill, and near its
base is the bridge over the Bujema (Bu-Jemaa) still resting on its old foimdations.
Owing to the constant encroachments of the alluvial plain formed by the Seybouse,
the city has had to be rebuilt at some distance north of the ruins of Hippo. The
port, which two thousand years ago opened at the foot of the hill, has been
gradually shifted to the north ; and the shipping, instead of penetrating into the
natural harbour at the river's mouth, has to anchor off the coast, under the
precarious shelter of the headland on which now stands the kasbah or citadel of
Bona. The Arab quarter stood on the slopes of this eminence ; but since the
French conquest it has spread beyond the enclosures over the low-lying plain
which stretches in the direction of the Seybouse. Between the old and new
quarters a handsome boulevard runs from the sea to a wooded height, beyond which
it is to be continued farther inland. Thanks to its well-kept streets, shady walks,
and pleasure-grounds. Bona is one of the most agreeable places in Algeria, and as
BONA— HEEBELLON.
243
the seat of the Hippo Academy has even become a centre of scientific and literary
activity.
As a seaport Bona enjoys great advantages. Its roadstead, well sheltered
from the west and north-west winds by Cape Garde, was much frequented during
Fig. 87.— Bona.
Scale 1 : 90,000.
7°46'
h. . ot bneenwich
Deptlio
0to32
Feet.
70 50'
32 to 64
Feet.
64 to 160
Feet.
160 Feet and
upwards.
_ 4,400 Yards.
Mediseval times by European mariners, who were protected from oppressive
exactions by special conventions. On two occasions, in 1152 and 1535, it even
feUinto the hands of the Christians, and after its final occupation by the French in
244
NORTH-^VEST APEICA.
1832, it became one of the chief naval stations on this coast. The present harbour,
from 18 to 20 feet deep inshore, occupies an area of about 30 acres ; while the outer
port, protected from the surf by a pier 2,600 feet long, encloses an additional
space of 175 acres. But its growing trade, especially with Algiers, Marseilles, and
Tunis, requires further accommodation, and it is now proposed to convert a large
portion of the outer harbour into a second basin, lined with quays reclaimed from
the sea.
About one-third of the motley population of Bona are French, after whom the
most numerous elements are the Italians and Maltese. There are about one
thousand Kabyles and Mzabites, employed chiefly as porters and labourers, within
the city proper, while several thousand natives reside in the outskirts grouped in
the picturesque but squalid village of Beni-Ramasses. On the neighbouring
Moimt Edugh is a pleasant health-resort, whose advantages have hitherto been
Fig. 88. — EDUon ajtd Lake Fetzaea.
Scale 1 : 295,000.
"^M^S^
7°2C'
L . of/ bf-eenwicH
7°40'
3 Miles.
somewhat neglected. From the crest of this eminence an extensive view is com-
manded of the surrounding hills falling northwards in terraces down to the coast,
and in the opposite direction down to the depression of Lake Fetzara. On the
northern slope, between Capes Garde and De Fer, the only group of habitations is
the little fishing village of Ilcrhillon (Takush) ; but the southern is more thickly
inhabited, thanks to the iron-mines of Mokta-cl-IIadid, which j'ield an excellent
ore, almost as highly appreciated as that of Dalecarlia, and containing 62 per cent,
of pure metal. Over a thousand workmen are employed in these mines, which
yield about four hundred thousand tons annually, valued at £280,000, and exported
to France, England, and even the New World. But the rich deposits of copper
and zinc found at Ain-Barhar, in the very heart of the Edugh district, are no longer
worked, owing to the extreme difficulty of cartage.
CONSTANTINE. 245
Less than half a mile south of the Mokta-el-Hadid works, Hes the important
station of Ain Mokhra, which is imfortimately exposed to the exhalations from
Lake Fetzara. This lagoon or morass, which has a mean depth of little over 6
feet, is evidently the remains of an old inlet forming a continuation of the present
Gulf of Bona across the now-dried-up plaius of the Mafreg and Mebuja rivers.
The question of its draiuage has frequently been discussed, and should this project
be carried out, over 30,000 acres of rich alluvial soil will be brought under cultiva-
tion. In summer the basin is nearly dry, and it might be easily diverted to the
lower Seybouse by reduciug the bed of the Mebuja to a lower level than the present
level of the lake.
The railway connecting Ain Mokhra with Bona is soon to be continued west-
wards in the direction of the station of Saint-Charles, on the Constantine-Philippe-
ville hne. Were it also extended to the coast by skirting the Filfila headland, the
works might be resumed in the famous marble mines of this district, interrupted
since the time of the Romans.
In the "Wed-el-Kebir basin, which flows to the gulf sheltered by Cape de Fer,
the only important European town is Jemtnapes, situated in a rich and well-
watered district. The local Berber tribe of the Sanhejas has preserved the name
formerly borne by the powerful Zenaga nation. The name of the Zenaga or
Senegal River, over 2,000 miles from this place, also attests the former extension of
the Berber race dispersed by the Arab invaders.
CONSTANTINE.
Constantine, capital of the eastern department, is one of the famous cities of
Africa. From the dawn of Mauritanian history this great natural stronghold
appears under the name of Cirta, that is, the " fortress," as the word is commonly
iuterpreted. The title of Constantine, preserved by the Arabs under the form of
K'santhina, was conferred on it at the beginning of the fourth century, in. honour
of the Emperor Constantiae. The extensive ruins scattered over the district attest
the important position of this ancient capital of Nimiidia and centre of the Roman
dominion in North Africa. But its very strength necessarily exposed it to
freofuent attack, and according to the local tradition, it was taken no less than
eighty times. By its capture in 1837 the French secured a solid footing in the
interior of the eastern Tell, and easily crushed all local risings, henceforth deprived
of a common rallying-point.
The city proper occupies a gently inclined rocky table, whose northern head-
land rises to a height of 2,100 feet, or 360 feet higher than the opposite point.
The whole terrace forms a somewhat regular trapeze, with a circuit of nearly
2 miles, and detached by deep ravines from the rest of the plateau on all sides
except towards the south-west. The steep escarpments facing south-east and
north-east rise precipitously above the bed of the Rummel, which plunges into
these gloomy gorges soon after its confluence with the Bu-Merzug. Of the five
bridges formerly connecting the two sides of the abyss, four have almost entirely
246
NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
disappeared ; but the fifth, at the eastern angle of the cliff, has always been
rebuilt. The iron arch constructed by the French engineers, at a height of 350
feet above the stream, stands on fragments of masonry of every epoch from the
time of Antoninus Pius. Immediately below this bridge the Rummel disappears
beneath a rocky arcade, beyond which the cliffs again fall vertically to the bed of
the stream, leaving only a solitary pointed arch of remarkably symmetrical shape,
Fig. 89. — CONSTANTINE IN 1836.
Scale 1 : 10,300.
kvV^f
.'^\^■^
■jftt
, ltks>ied
6*56-20-
h f.'of breenvvich
6° 35' 50'
. 330 Yards.
forming a natural bridge over the chasm. Farther down the current ramifies
in'-o three turbulent branches, and at the issue of the gorge plunges in three
successive falls into the lower valley. Unfortunately it is impossible to penetrate
far into this romantic ravine, owing to the mephitic exhalations rising from the
Rummel, which serves as an open sewer to the town.
CONSTANTINE. 247
On the rocky table above tbe gorge bouses and buildings are packed close
Fig. 90. — The Natueai, Aech of Constantine.
together. In the north are grouped the barracks, hospital, arsenal, and kasbah.
248
NORTH-TN^ST AFRICA.
south of whicli run the regular streets of the Euroijean quarter. The Jews are
grouped in the east, the Mzabites in the centre, and in the south the Arabs occupy a
labyrinth of coui'ts and alleys, into which few Eiiropeans venture without a guide.
Whole streets are devoted to the leather trade, which is the staple industry of
Constantino, giving constant employment to hundreds of tanners, saddlers, and
shoemakers.
Fig. 91. — CONSTAXTINE IN 1884.
Scale 1 : 20,000.
1,10<) Yards.
Constantino has scarcely any noteworthy monuments. Few of its ninety-five
mosques have escaped the sjDoilcr's hand, and the citadel is a mere aggregate of
barracks and magazines, although some valuable inscriptions have been preserved
in its outer walls. Nearly ten thousand inscribed stones have here been collected,
and the city, which is a provincial cai)ital, also contains numerous other archcco-
logical remains, such as Roman statues, busts, vases, sepulchral and votive
PHILIPPEVTLLE— JIJILI— SETIF. 249 ,
tablets. The most interesting buLlding is the Moorish palace of the last Bey,
Ahmed, now occupied by the French staff. Near this structure are grouped the
new municipal buildings, the Geographical Society, and the other learned institutes
established since the French occupation. In order to make room for the contiaual
growth of the city, it is proposed to level the Cudiat-Ati hill, the site of the old
necropolis at the south-west corner, and lay out the space thus acquired beyond
the walls as a new quarter.
Amongst the extensive remains scattered over the lower valley of the Rummel
are the ruins of the fortified town of Tiddi, near which the right bank of the
Smendu, a tributary of the same river, is occupied by the tomb of the Lollius
family, one of the finest Eoman monuments in Algeria. The Alsatian colonists
settled in the surrounding villages of Ruffash, Ain-Kerma, Belfort, Altkirch, and
others, have in several places been allowed to utilise these remains for the con-
struction of their dwellings.
The rapidly increasing local and export trade of Constantine is furthered by
several railways, all of which, however, have not stations in the city itself. Thus
the junction of the Guelma-Tunis line is at Khruh {Khoruh), the largest cattle
market in East Algeria, whUe the two lines between Setif and the Sahara branch
off at El-Guerra. East of this point the Algiers line approaches the Upper
Rummel Yalley, where are several centres of European colonisation, such as Ain-
Smara, Wed Atmenia, Chateauduriy Coulmiers, Saint-Donat (a curious corruption of
Saaduna), Paladines, and Saint- Arnaiid. Here the Ahd-en-Nur nomads have
mostly acquired sedentary habits, and their habitations are now everywhere inter-
mingled with those of the European settlers. Since the middle of the century
these Berber communities have ceased to speak their native tongue ; and many of
them are noted for their light hair and blue eyes.
The railway connecting Constantine with the coast winds along the slopes of
the El-Kantur hills down to the plains of the Safsaf, which, till the French occupa-
tion, were almost uninhabited. Near the line follow in succession the villages of
Bizot and Conde-Smendu, and the little town of El-JIarrush, surrounded by gardens
and olive groves watered by the Safsaf. The neighbouring hamlets of Saint-
Charles, Saint- Antoine, Damremont, and Valee, have all become flourishing centres
of viniculture.
Philippeville — JiJiLi — Setif.
PhilippeviUe, the seaport of Constantine, is not such a modern place as its name
might suggest. It occupies the site of the old Phoenician Rus-Licar, the Rusicada
of the Romans, modified to Ras-Ski/ida by the Arabs, and to Tasikda by the
Berbers. But since its occupation by the French in 1838, most of its monuments
have disappeared, having been utilised for the erection of the extensive fortifi-
cations which follow the crest of the hills from east to west, enclosing the whole
town and large open spaces. There still remain, however, the ruins of a theatre
AFRICA I. s
250
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
partly excavated in tlio cliff, numerous cisterns, and some fine mosques, besides the
statues, busts, urns, and inscriptions preserved in the museum.
Tke town occupies a ravine between the two ridges of Bu-Jala and Jehel
Addun, east and west. The main thoroughfare, running along the old bed of a
stream terminates seawards in an elevated terrace, whence a view is commanded
of the esplanade and of the inner and outer harbour, the former covering an area
of 50 acres, and enclosed by jetties, the latter much more extensive, but insuffi-
Fig. 92. — PnrLTPPEViu-E.
Scale 1 : S^i.OOO.
OtolG
Feet.
16 to 32
Feet.
Depths.
32 to 64
Feet.
64 to 128
Feet.
2,200 Yards.
128 Feet and
upwards.
ciently protected from the surf. Before the construction of the present harbour
works the shipping was obliged to seek refuge at Stora, the old " Genoese port,"
which lies 2^ miles north-west of Philippevillc, at a point sufficiently protected
from the west and north winds.
A somewhat analogous position is occupied by Collo, the Chmhi of the Romans,
and Ktdln of the natives, which is also sheltered by a headland from the west and
PHILIPPEVILLE— JIJILI— SETIP.
251
north-west winds. Tlie Romans had some purple dye-works at this port, which
during the Middle Ages was much frequented by Italian and French traders.
Since its occupation by the French in 1845, Collo has again become a flourishing
seaport, doing a considerable export trade in minerals, cork, sardines, and other
local produce.
About midway between Collo and Bougie stands the ancient seaport of Jijili,
which still preserves in a slightly modified form its Libyan name of Igilgili, handed
down by inscriptions from the very dawn of history. The tombs excavated in the
cliffs along the coast are the work of Phoenician colonists, as shown by their perfect ,
Fig. 93.— JiJiLl.
Scale 1': 25,000.
ser
6°5'50
B°e30'
Depths.
otoie
Feet.
16 to 32
Feet.
64 Feet
and upwards.
resemblance to those of the old Syrian necropoli. During Roman, Byzantine, and
Mediseval times, Jijili continued to enjoy a considerable degree of commercial
prosperity; but after its capture by the Turks in 1514 it fell into decay, and at the
French occupation in 1839 was little more than a fishing village. Since 1871, when
the surrounding tribes were finally reduced, it has recovered some of its former
trade, and the new town, laid out in regular shady streets^ has spread within the
fortifications from the old town to Fort Duquesne, erected on a rocky headland
towards the south-east. Jijili, which is one of the healthiest places on the Algerian
coast, is encircled by a fertile tract cultivated by Spanish and Maltese colonists.
252 NOETH-WEST AEEICA.
The port, already sheltered from the west, might be easily protected from the north
bv fillin"- up the gaps in a coral reef, which stretches from the old town eastwards
to an islet, on which a lighthouse has already been constructed. The neighbouring
villages of Duquesne and Strasbourg, on the route to Constantine, have become
independent centres of European colonisation.
In the Wed Sahcl basin the chief place is Set if, the Roman Sifijjs, which, thanks
to its central position at the converging point of several routes across the plateau,
became in the fourth century the capital of one of the Mauritanias. But for some
time after the French occupation it was a mere military station, affording protection
to a small European settlement. Since then it has increased rapidly, and is now
an important agricultural centre, surrounded by several large rural communities.
Some of these places owe their origin to a colonising society of Geneva, which has
acquired 50,000 ac^s of rich land from the French Government.
Next to Setif, the largest commune in this district is Ain-Ahcssa, which lies on
the slope of the Maghris, between the two routes over the hills connecting Setif
with the port of Bougie. One of these routes runs through Takitunt, Kerrata, and
the gorges of the Tababor, the other through Ain-Eua and the Wed Guergur.
Both are remarkable monuments of engineering skill, presenting in their descent
from the plateaux to the coast some aspects of imposing grandeur.
The modern town of Bu-Arrerij, the chief place in the fertile Mejana Yalley,
stands at an elevation of over 3,000 feet, near the waterparting between the Wed-
Sahel and Hodna basins, and midway between Constantine and Algiers, on the
railway connecting those cities. Before the conquest, Bu-Arrerij held a position of
great strategic importance near the gorges of the Biban range leading from the
plateaux to the Sahel Valley. About 15 miles north-west of this point, on a bluff
in the same range, stands the chief stronghold of the country, the Kalaa (Gala,
Guela), or " Castle" in a pre-eminent sense. This citadel of the powerful Beni-
Abbes tribe also served as a place of refuge for those flj^g from the wrath of the
Deys and their vassals. Here are woven burnouses highly prized iu every part of
Algeria.
AuMALE — Bougie.
In the western part of the Wcd-Sahcl basin, Atimale, the Homan Auzia, occupies
a strategic position similar to that of Setif and Bu-Arrerij farther east. After the
French occupation in 1846, its defensive works were restored, and it soon became
one of the chief bulwarks of their power in the interior of Algeria. It has also
become the centre of a large trade in cereals, wool, leather, dates, alfa, live stock,
and other produce of the Tell. But lying beyond the network of railways, Aumale
is a very quiet place, except on market-days. Here have been found numerous
sculptured fragments and inscriptions, the remains of the ancient Auzia. In the
neighbourhood are the populous villages of Bir-Rahalu and Ain-Bcsscm, and lower
down the Sahcl Valley the fortalicc of Bcni-Mansur. Of the numerous agricultural
settlements founded in this district, the most important is Ak-hu, officially known
AUMALE— BOUGIE.
253
by the name of Metz. It lies at the issue of the route descending from Great
Kabylia over the Shellata Pass. The whole valley is strewn with Roman remains,
and here stood the city of Tubusuctus, whose site is still unoccupied by any modern
town.
Bougie, the Saldce of the Romans, is a decayed place, although since the middle
of the century it has recovered most of its former population. It was twice a royal
capital, first under the Vandals before the captm-e of Carthage, and again under
the Beni-Hammads at the close of the eleventh and beginning of the twelfth
century, when it is said to have contained no less than twenty thousand houses.
Even after ceasing to be a political centre, Bejdia, so named from one of the
Kg. 94.— BotTGIE.
Scale 1 : 34,400.
L 1 r.l I ireenwicn
5' 5
5*e-
Depths.
0 tol6
Teet.
16 to 32
Feet.
32 to 64
Feet.
64 Feet and
upwards.
1,100 Yards.
neighbouring hill tribes, continued to enjoy considerable commercial prosperity,
thanks to the advantages of its port, one of the most sheltered on the Algerian
coast. At this point Mount Lalla Guraia, over 2,300 feet high, advances seawards
in the direction from west to east, the bay thus enclosed being completely protected
from the dangerous west, north-west, and north winds. Its relations with Europe
became so frequent that, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, Bougie placed
itself under the protection of the kings of Aragon, in order to contend successfully
against the other seaboard towns. But the period of legitimate trade was followed
by one of piracy, during which Bougie became a nest of daring corsairs. Reduced
in 1509 by Pedro of Navarre, it was retaken by the Turks in 1555, after which it
264 NOETH-WEST APEIOA.
lost all its trade until its recent revival under the French. But it is still far less
extensive than in its prosperous days, of which its most interesting monument is
the Bab-el-Bahr, or "Sea Gate," a Moorish archway forming part of the old
ramparts. Bougie, which lies at the natural issue of the vast basin stretching
from Setif to Aumale, is connected by a regular service of steamers with Marseilles,
and will soon enjoy the advantages of railway communication with Algiers through
Beni-Mansur, and with the interior by a line running thi'ough the Babor and
BibAn hills to Setif.
Kabylia.
The section of the Jurjura highlands enclosed by the rivers Sahel and laser
usually takes the name of " Great Kabylia," in contradistinction to the " Little
Kabylia," which comprises the rugged Biban and Babor uplands. The term
Kahylia itself has no ethnical value, being simply the Arabic kahila, or " tribe,"
applied in different districts to populations of the most diverse origin. In Mauri-
tania it was applied by the Mussiilman invaders to all the non-Arab peoples driven
by them from the plains to the uplands. It thus gradually acquired a degrading
sense, and the Algerian Arabs now more usually designate their own tribes by the
equivalent word arsli. On the other hand, the Berber Kabyles of the Jurjura
highlands, descendants of the ancient Sanheja confederation, call themselves
Imazighen, or Amzigh, that is, " Freemen," a word identical with the Maxyes of
Ilerodotus.
The great bulk of the Kabyles, whatever their origin, certainly seem entitled
to this name, for to preserve their freedom they took refuge in the mountains,
where they successively resisted the Boman, Vandal, Byzantine, Arab, and French
invaders. The Bled-el-Adua, or ** Hostile Land," as the Arabs call these moun-
tains of Kab}'lia, although now one of the most densely peopled regions in North
Africa, appears during the early historic epoch to have been but sparsely inhabited.
Every fresh wave of conquest contributed a fresh contingent of fugitives, who
gradually took their place side by side with the previous occupants. Thus is
explained the great diversity of types, ranging from the Negro to the Caucasic,
represented by the present inhabitants of the Jurjura highlands and valleys. Of
more or less mixed Negro blood are the Abid, or " Slaves," of the Boghni district
in the south-west ; while a Jewish origin is claimed for the Ait Bu- Yusscf, dwelling
on the northern slope of the main range south of Fort National. The Ait Fraucen,
probably owing to the resemblance of their name, have been affiliated to the French,
and the Ait Ijermenen for the same reason to the Germans. Amongst the latter,
however, who are settled in the district between Bougie and Azeffun, many are
foimd of a fair or ruddy complexion, and in their features bearing a marked
resemblance to the Germans.
Nevertheless the Jurjura tribes may be said on the whole to represent the old
Berber population, and amongst them are probably to be sought the purest descen-
dants of the primitive Mauritanians. According to a national legend, they are
" sprung of the soil," although in other traditions allusion is made to peoples
KABYLIA. 255
anterior even to the present Kabyles. These are designated by the term Juhala,
applied also both to Romans and " pagans." In many places occur circidar holes
filled with refuse, which appear to have served as himian habitations. A local
legend, similar to that current in the Altai region regarding the mysterious
" Chudes," relates how a denizen of these half- subterranean dwellings, on falling
seriously ill and feeling his end approach, sawed asunder the post supporting the
roof, then with a last effort pushing the post aside, buried himself beneath the
ruins.
At present the population of Great Kabylia, with an area of 2,200 square miles,
may be estimated at about haK a million, or over two hundred to the square mile!
"Were this proportion maintained throughout the whole country, from the Mediter-
ranean to the verge of the desert, Algeria would have a population of some forty
millions. But before the French occupation, incessant intertribal warfare pre-
vented the natural growth of the people. The Kabyles, who are grouped in at
least a himdred tribes and over a hundred secondary clans, are also divided into
soffs, or political factions, which are constantly imiting, breaking asunder, and
reconstituting themselves, according to the shifting interests and passions of the
several groups. "Warfare was their destiny, said the natives themselves, a curse of
Lalla Khedija having condemned them to everlasting discord. The confederations
formed from time to time against a common enemy seldom lasted long, after the
passing danger the league being dissolved and each fraction resuming its autonomy.
Nevertheless the Kabyles were conscious of the ties of kinship connecting all their
tribes, and the memory of their common origin was perpetuated by ethnical names
common to the whole nation. The term Ait is used to indicate a federal union,
not community of origin, like the Arab word Ulad, which is reserved for tribes of
Semitic descent ; while Bcni, also an Arab word, is applied to both races, but
especially to the Kabyles.
The chief tribal group is that of the Zwawa (Igawawen), whose name has been
frequently used in a collective sense for all the Kabyles. In Timis it was stiU
recently appHed to the Berber highlanders, and during the early days of the
French occupation it served, under the form of " Zouave," to designate contingents
of native troops recruited chiefly amongst the Kabyles. The Zwawas, numbering
about one hundred and fifty thousand, occupy on the northern slope of the Jurjura
nearly the whole Upper Sebau basin, nearly to its confluence with the "Wed Aissi.
To this family belong the Ait-Yahias, whose central village of Kuku or Kuho,
occupying the site of an old Roman station, was formerly regarded as a sort
of capital for the whole of Kabylia, although containing scarcely more than
sixteen hundred inhabitants. The Ait-Fraucen are also Zwawas, and in their
territory is situated the formerly important town of Jemaa-es-Sahrij, or " Collection
of Basins," so named from the numerous reservoirs constructed in this district
during the Roman epoch. In the same group are classed the Ait-Batruu, settled
west of the Wed Aissi, and the brave Ait-Iraten, whose village of Meraiicen has
been replaced by Fort National, the chief French stronghold in Great Kabylia.
In the upper Wed-Bu-Gdura basin, towards the south-west angle of these
256 NOETH-WEST AFEICA.
uplands, dwell the Gueshtula or Igueshdulen, who are usually identified with the
ancient Getulians, and who differ in many respects from the other inhabitants of
the Jui'jura district. They are a small " bullet-headed " people, less cultured
than the Zwawas, living in wretched hovels, and occupied chiefly in tending the
herds of their more powerful neighbours. Near them are the Abids, descended of
emancipated Negro slaves, and farther north the formerly powerful Mahacta
tribe.
The "West Kabyle highlands are occupied by the Flissa-um-el-Lil, or Flissa of
the Night, called also Flissa of the "Woods, descended of the warlike Issaflcnses,
who maintained a long struggle against the Romans. The Flissa of the Sea,
another branch of this group, separated from their brethren by the Isser, the Ait-
"Waguennun, and other communities, were formerly noted armourers, whose swords,
modelled on the Roman gladium, and worn by most of the natives, still take the
name of " flissa."
Amongst the other Kabyle groups, the most important are the Zarfawa of the
Azeffun district, the Bu-Daud at the north-east extremity of Kabylia, and the
Ait-Gobri east of the Zwawas. On the outer flanks of the Jurjura are also some
powerful tribes, such as the Ait-Ughli, between Akbu and Bougie ; the lUula
Assamer, or Illulas of the Sun, so named in contradistinction to the lUula Umalu, or
Illulas of the Shade, residing on the northern slope of the Upper Jurjura ; and
the Ait-MKkcsh, bordering on the Beni-Mansur marabuts, who occupy several
villages south of the Wed Sahel. Lastly, in the Lower Sebau Valley arc settled the
Amarawa people, who comprise the most diverse elements, and who long constituted
a makhzen, or military tribe, in constant feud with its neighbours.
In Great Kabylia ethnologists recognise two predominant types, one distin-
guished by round features, prominent cheek-bones, pointed lower jaw, probably
representing the aborigines ; the other with flat, oval face, small bright eyes, nose
depressed at the root, projecting upper incisors. In general the Kabyles are of
middle size, strong and muscidar, but mostly tainted with syphilitic diseases.
But however different in physical appearance, all the Kabyles of the Jurjura
and eastern ranges are one in speech, speaking Zwawia, a Berber dialect affected
by Arab elements in the proportion of about one-third. From Arabic are usually
borrowed terms relating to mental or moral subjects, to religion, law, the arts and
sciences, and to such plants, animals, and other objects as have been introduced
since the Mussulman conquest. In the same language are composed the few works
read by the cultured Kabyles, whose mother tongue is no longer written ; in fact,
the only literature it possesses are some theological tractates and a few songs,
diilcring from the ordinary language of conversation by a larger infusion of
Semitic elements. Thus the Kabyle gradually acquires a knowledge of Arabic,
and wherever the rival tongues meet on common ground, the more useful tends to
prevail.
The essential difference between the two races lies in the greater love of a
nomad life shown by the Arab, the Berber everywhere preferring a fixed abode
and agricultural pursuits. lie betrays the same passion for the soil as does the
KABTLIA.
257
Frencli peasant, and thanks to this quality, the rugged slopes of the hills, formerly-
strewn with stones or overgrown with scrub, are now clothed with the olive and
other useful plants. " What would become of me," cries the land in a native
legend, " were man to forsake me ? Must I return to my first state, and again
become the haunt of wild beasts ? " So minutely is the land subdivided, that in
Fig. 95. — ZwAWA AND Ait-Ieaten Teeeitoey.
Scale 1 : 180.000.
3 Miles.
some cases a single olive-tree Is shared among several owners. Hence the soil has
acquired an excessive value in the more densely peopled tracts, the average price
being from twenty to a hundred times higher in the Kabyle than in the Arab
districts.
Nor are the Berbers less distinguished for their industrial than for their
258
NOETH-WEST APEICA.
aoricultural skill. Amongst them all labour is respected, even that of the black-
smith, which is regarded with such contempt by the Ai-abs. The various Kabyle
tribes have each their special industry, so that at the fairs held successively in each
village on different days during the week, buyers may obtain all manufactured
articles of which they stand in need. In many Zwawa tribes the women excel in
the production of beautiful vases ; in others coarse earthenware is prepared ; the
Illiltens and Illulas of the Jurjura uplands devote their attention to wood-carving;
the Bu-Shaib and Ait-Ijer clans in the eastern highlands occupy themselves with
weaving ; the Ait-Frauccn with iron- work ; the Fenaia and Ait-Yenni with arms
and the preparation of warlike supplies of aU sorts. The last mentioned are also
Fig. 96.— Chtep Teibes or Kabylia.
Scale 1 : 1,290,000.
Pale ^ ^-
■'i^'^^^
t , ot b'"eenivich
A. Ait. a. Beni. 0. Oulad.
■ 30 Miles.
jewellers and metal casters, melting do^Mi the Spanish douros and converting them
into necklaces, rings, or diadems.
In the Kabyle districts the markets, supplied with objects of local industry and
foreign importation, are very animated. Usually held near the cemetery outside
the town walls, they become in political times popular gatherings for the discus-
sion of public topics. Here were formerly decided questions of peace and war ;
but since the French occupation politics have given place to the interests of peace-
ful intercourse.
So dense is the population in Great KabyHa that the agricultural produce is
insufficient for the local wants, Ilencc thousands yearly emigrate in search of a
livelihood amongst strangers. Formerly many hired themselves out as mercenaries
to fight for the Turk, and even still most of the Algerian "Zouaves" are recruited
KABYLIA. 259
amongst the Zwawa tribes. The Ait-Iraten and Beni- Abbes have settled in
Algiers as bakers and bankers. But most of the emigrants become porters in the
coast towns, or else pedlars and hawkers in the rujal districts. Whole colonies
become associated with the Arab tribes on the plains, where they gradually
acquire possession of the land. In this way several Kabyle villages have sprung
up in the vicinity of Guelma, Shershell, Aumalc and other towTis. Since the
cessation of tribal warfare, the rapid increase of population even obliges the
Kabyles constantly to widen the field of migration, and they have already begun
to invade Timisia, the oases of the desert, and Marocco. The number of temporary
or permanent emigrants has thus risen from about twelve thousand in the middle
of the century to some forty thousand at the present time.
The Kabyles have all the sterling qualities of true peasants — patience, frugality
and thrift. Extremely honest and incapable of deception, they exact from others
the same probity in their mutual dealings. But notwithstanding their careful
habits and strict attention to the main chance, they can at times unbend, and
willingly indulge in social amusements, songs, and merry-makings. However
conservative of the old usages, they are less slaves to routine than the French
peasantry. They gladly introduced the potato into their gardens, and have
recently taken to cultivating the vine in a large way on the outer slopes of the
Jurjura highlands. They are above all distinguished by their excessive love of
personal independence. All want to be " sultans at home ; " all speak of their
honour, and have constantly on their tongue the Arabic word nif, which properly
means "nose," but which symbolises personal dignity and sensitiveness. But
their self-respect is not shown in any love of fine clothes. The gandura is worn
till it falls to pieces, nor is it always easy to detect the original colour of the
national sheshia. The houses also, in which oxen, goats and poultry have their
share, are often unspeakably foul. " The Kabyle never dreams of sweeping his
dwelling imtil the time comes for manuring his vegetable garden."*
The Kabyle marriage is a strictly business transaction, the wife being purchased
of her parents for from £8 to £40, according to their rank and influence, or her
personal charms. " The father eats his daughter," says the local expression,
"when he squanders the sum received as her dowry." On the other hand, once
master of the bride, the husband may send her back at pleasure, in which case the
parents may again offer her for sale, on condition of returning the whole or part of
the purchase-money to the first husband. Nothing is simpler than the form of
divorce, a single word thrice repeated sufficing to dissolve the union. The
husband's authority is absolute, and in several tribes he formerly placed a stick by
the side of his bride, a formality needing no verbal interpretation. Infidelity on
her part is severely punished ; before the French occupation she was usually
condemned to be stoned, and even still most of the murders committed in KabyHa
are due to the secret observance of the old law. Nevertheless, the wife enjoys
great freedom in domestic affairs, and when badly used by her husband may even
take refuge with her parents. She also goes abroad unveiled, but never alone.
* L. Feraud, "Bevue Africaine," November, 1862.
260 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
Numerous cases have been recorded of women acquiring a predominant influence in
the tribe, either as heroines or prophetesses, and their shrines are no less venerated
than those of the marabut saints. The widow enjoys equal rights with man before
the law, and like him may purchase, sell, or bequeath property. Already in some
of the tribes a certain evolution has begim in the direction of a new constitution
for the family, and, acting imder the advice of their French friends, several
communities have decided that girls shall no longer be given in marriage before
the age of fourteen. The establishment of French schools, in which the native
women give proof of great zeal and intelligence, has also greatly contributed to
their emancipation.
All these social changes will easily be accomplished, because, unlike the Arabs,
the Kabyles are not bound by the letter of the Koran. They have their own laws,
or rather their traditional usages, designated by the name of kanun, or " canons,"
a term obviously borrowed from their former Byzantine rulers. According to the
local traditions, they were at one time Christians, and the old religion would seem
to be still symbolised in the crosses tattooed on the women's faces, and even on some
of the men, and in some of the tribes sculptured on the doors of the houses and
of the very mosques. But however this be, their Christianity does not appear to
have greatly modified their habits and ideas. After calling themselves Christians,
they called themselves Mussulmans, adopting a few rites from Islam, but seldom
showing any zeal for the faith. They neglect the prescribed prayers, and arc far
from strict observers of the Ramadan fast. The echo of the mountain, they say,
when consulted to know whether they might eat, replied " Eat ! " Scarcely a
hundred Kabyles make the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca, and then more in the
character of traders than of devotees. Most of their ceremonies seem inherited
from pre-^lussulman and pre-Christian times ; they still worship the divinities of
nature, who control the winds and the rain, who give fertility to the soil and to
the cattle. On certain days processions are formed in honour of the ancient
goddess, " Bride of the "Waters," represented by a dresscd-up doll. These are
the " Rogation days," which in the course of ages have already been adapted to
three successive cults.
The descendants of the Arab conquerors still reside in Kabylia without mixing
with the surrounding populations. Such are the so-called " Marabut families,"
sometimes numerous enough to form veritable clans. Those of the Jurjura district
claim to have come from the west, and some local names would seem to show that
the Andalusian Moors are largely represented amongst them. They are confined
to special villages, usually situated below those of the tribe, whose liberty is thus
secured from attack. The Marabuts act as advisers, and teach the children to recite
verses from the Koran. But depending for their support partly on voluntary
contributions, they have acquired indolent habits, and their villages, even when
situated in fertile districts, are mere collections of wretched hovels.
In recent times the Mussulman confraternities have made great progress
amongst the Kabyle populations. Some of their monasteries established in the
midst of the tribes are encircled by a neutral zone interdicted to all belligerents.
KABTLIA.
261
The most influential of these religious communities is that of Ben Ali Sherif, at
Shellata, on the outer slope of the eastern Jurjura uplands. The head of this
zawya has become a sort of prince, one of the most distinguished natives in.
Algeria.
Although greatly modified by the French conquest, Kabyle society still
preserves in its political constitution distinct features, rendering it one of the most
original and remarkable of human associations. Carette, Feraud, Hanoteau,
Sabatier, and other observers speak of it with amazement, and assure us that even
the most cultured nations might learn much from these hitherto despised high-
Fig. 97.— Kttku and Shellata Pass.
Scale 1 : 135.500.
'//;■' vr 'f^-~"»^ '■'. *"'^"iiiv'k'" ^it ■" I ^x -:.--. • >v 'I'
0 Village.
3 Miles.
landers. Wherever military regulations or the civil administration have not
arrested the free play of the old usages, every taddert, or village, constitutes a little
self- governed commonwealth, in which rich and poor, young and old, have all
alike their share. At the age of fifteen the youth becomes a citizen, and, if strong
.enough to shoulder his musket, has a right to vote ; only he is expected to show to
his elders the respect due to age. The jemda, or assembly, composed of all the
citizens of the several kharubas, meets once a week, oftener in cases of emergency,
delivers sentence, and appoints those who have to give it effect. In the assembly
are centred aU powers, political, administrative, and judicial. It hears charges
262 NOETH-WEST AFEICA.
ao-ainst persons accused of dishonourable acts, or of offences against the rites of
hospitality, and its sentences usually take the form of fines, which go to replenish
the communal coffers. But whoever brings disgrace on his tribe must leave it,
the sentence of banishment being followed by the demolition of his house.
Imprisonment is never inflicted on any one, freedom being too precious a treasure
to be forfeited even by criminals. The bastinado and blows of any sort are also
considered as degrading offender and executioner alike. Death was restricted to
cases of high treason, but every citizen retained the right of inflicting personal
vengeance on his enemy. "Murder is a loan which must be repaid," says the
local proverb.
To administer the commune in the name of the jemaa, an amin is chosei;,
usually amongst the wealthier classes, because no salary is attached to the office,
lie is often even obliged to incur heavy expenses, and if he accepts the position of
a public servant, he does so on the condition of acquiring nothing but a certain
honourable distinction for himself and his family. He holds office so long as he
performs his duty ; but the moment he ceases to give satisfaction to his fellow-
citizens, he sees in their attitude of disapproval that the time has come for him to
resign, without waiting for a formal vote of censure. Measures have also been
devised to prevent him from favouring the interests of the soff (majority) to the
detriment of the minority. He is elected by the soff, but the minority always
nominates the treasurer, who disposes of the revenues, and thus all interests are
consulted. Moreover, each soff constitutes a sort of commune within the commune,
and in alliance with the corresponding soffs of the neighbouring districts, and even
of distant confederations. Associations of all sorts assume a thousand forms in
Kabylia, at one time restricted to a particular branch of industry, at another
embracing several family groups, and constituting one large family analogous to
the Servian zadruga. But in all cases the responsibility of the associated members
is of a joint character, the " limited liability" principle of European companies being
unknown amongst the Kabyles.
Thanks to this spirit of republican solidarity, abject poverty is of rare occur-
rence. Without sacrificing their personal dignity, those in temporary distress
receive from the commune such aid as they stand in need of. Occasionally pubKc
repasts are held, in which rich and poor must all alike take part. The builder of
a house claims by right the assistance of the whole village ; those engaged in
manual labour, or in harvesting their crops, may also rely on their neighbours' help ;
while a general corvie is instituted to till the land of those no longer able to work
for themselves. Thus all claim and return mutual aid to all. Even towards the
distressed stranger the Kabyle is bound to show friendship, guiding him through
the storm, and giving him food when pressed by hunger. During the terrible
winter of 1867-8, when thousands of natives perished in the French settlements,
mendicants flocked from all quarters towards the Jurjura highlands, where none
were allowed to starve.
It might be supposed that a nation divided into as many little democracies as
there are villages, would be powerless against foreign aggression. On the contrary,
KABYLIA.
263
it displayed greater strength than the little centralised Arab states, in whicli the
subjects, following one leader, were vanquished or surrendered with him. In the
presence of a common danger confederacies were formed between the different
tribes, and young men hastened from all parts, vowing to sacrifice their lives for
the common weal. Before the battle the prayer for the dead was read over them
by the marabuts, and they in truth seldom cared to survive defeat. All recognised
the virtue of the anaya, an Arabic word meaning " protection," but also used in
the sense of " honour," spoken of as " the beneficent king of the Kabyles, who
levies no taxes." Should war break out between the septs, the women were forth-
with placed imder the joint anaya of the contending factions ; in the same way-
certain roads, districts, or days were reserved by being placed under the same
collective guarantee, answering to the " truce of God," which in Europe afforded
some respite from the everlasting feuds of Mediaeval times.
And now that the French in their turn have proclaimed the universal anaya
amongst the tribes, they already feel themselves half assimilated to their new
masters, and religiously observe the peace. Many are even proud of the privilege
of naturalisation, and but for the fear of being rejected, whole tribes would ask to
be enrolled as French citizens. Primary instruction daily spreading, and already
obligatory and gratuitous in some communities, will soon raise the whole nation to
the same level as many so-called " Aryan " peoples. Assuredly a bright future
may be predicted for this brave and industrious race, which, under the name of
" Arabs," has already rendered an immense service to mankind by preserving and
developing in Spain the knowledge bequeathed by the Hellenic world, at a time
when all science was threatened elsewhere with extinction under the night of the
Middle Ages.
Over the heights, terraces and headlands of Grreat Kabylia are scattered some
fourteen hundred villages, some containing from two thousand to two thousand
four hundred inhabitants. Although mostly forming a mere aggregate of huts
pressed close together, a certain order may still be detected in the distribution of
the different quarters. All persons belonging to the same family group constitute
a kharuha, whose dwellings form a distinct district, while Uie streets or lanes of
all the kharubas converge in the jemaa, or place of pubKc assembly. In the
centre of this open space an arcade between two houses serves to shelter the
benches on which are seated the elders presiding over the popular gatherings.
But even in the densely peopled Jurjura district there are no towns properly
so called. Fort National, the military capital, is a mere collection of barracks,
magazines, taverns, and a few private houses, with promenades and gardens,
surrounded by an irregular enclosure, which follows the crest of the hill and falls
from terrace to terrace down the steep slopes, whence a view' is commanded of a
vast horizon. The present fort was built in 1857, nearly in the geographical centre
of Great Kabylia, in the midst of the powerful confederation of the Ait-Iraten tribe,
whose black villages crown all the surrounding heights. The great elevation of
Fort National (3,050 feet above the sea), giving it the military command of the
whole country, prevents it from becoming a large centre of trade and population.
264
NORTH-WEST AFEICA.
An eminence in the Bcni-Yenni territory, towards the south-west, is occupied by
Beni- Yahsen (the Arab Beni-el-Hasscn), the largest Kabyle village in the whole of
the Jurjura country. Here are four mosques and some sixty workshops, where
anns and jewellery are manufactured.
Tizi-Uzu— Dellys — Menerville.
In the valleys of the Sebau and its tributaries, the European settlers have
plready founded several villages, such as Azazga, Freha, Mekla, and Temda, which
Fig. 98. — Fort Nationai,.
Scale 1 : 8,000.
4°i6 50-
L » ot brecnw'rcK
4°t4'IO'
275yardfl
follow from north-cast to south-west along the line of the future route between
Algiers and liougie. But at present the trade of this district Is centred in the
modem town of Tizi-Uzu (the Arab Fej-el-Guendut), which lies at an altitude of
850 feet to the west of an extensive plain where the Wed Sebau and Wed Aissi
unite their turbulent waters. Few places in Algeria have developed more rapidly
than this administrative capital of Kabylia, whose market is frequented by thou-
sands of natives from the surrounding districts. In the hills to the north-west
DELLYS.
265
was discovered the remarkable Berber stele of Abizar, representing a naked warrior
armed with sliield and three javelins.
Besides the railway which will soon connect Tizi-Uzu with Algiers, another
line is intended to ascend the valley of the Wed Bu-Gdura, towards the flourishing
Fig. 99.— Dellts.
Scale 1 : 20,000.
Depths.
0tol6
Feet.
16 to 32
Feet,
32 to 64
Feet.
. 550 Yards.
64 Feet
and upwards.
village of Borj-Boghni, lying at the foot of a fortified hill. About 10 miles farther
west lies the town of Dra-ei-Mizan, which although no longer classed as a military
post, occupies an important strategical position commanding the southern approach
to Great Kabylia.
In the Lower Sebau Valley, some thriving places have recently sprung up,
AFRICA I. t
266
NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
including Rebeval, ZTlcd-Keddash, and Bois-Sacre. But Dellys or Dellis, the outport
of the district, lies not at the mouth of the river, but more to the east, under a
headland sheltering it from the north-west winds. It consists of one long street
and a few lanes on the slope of a hill terminating at Dellys Point, where a break-
Fig. 100. — PaLESTEO AJ.T) GOEOES OF THE ISSEE
Scale 1 : 176,000.
,^-y^^~r- ~-^'
t.,- oT urcenwich
:^z^-^
i 3 JrUes.
•water, intended to protect the roadstead from the north and east winds, has already
been carried some 300 feet into the baj'. A school of arts and industries, one of the
chief institutions of the department of Algiers, has been founded in Dellys for the
benefit of the surrounding Kabyle population. On the exposed coast running
PALESTEO— ISSEEVILLE.
267
eastwards, the only European stations are Tikzirf, near the little port of Taksebt,
and Azefun {Zeffun), called also Port Giiedon.
Near the Tvaterparting between the sources of the Isser and the eastern slope of
the Shelif stands the rising town of Bencagha, an important agricultural centre,
where the French have established a model farm, a school of agriculture, and a
rural com-ict station containing over a thousand criminals. Below the abrupt
bend of the Isser round the hills of Great Kabyha lies Palestro, a flourishing place
founded since the opening of the road which penetrates through the gorges of the
riveij and which is now accompanied by a railway. Since the massacre of some ,
Fig. 101. — Lower Sebatj aotj Issee Valleys.
Scale 1 : 270,000.
^^^>t^^ .^-^J^
3° 4
Depths.
^
0to32
Feet.
32 to 64
Feet.
&4tol60
Feet.
160 to 320
Feet.
320 Feet and
upwards.
fifty Europeans during a revolt of the natives in 1871, Palestro has been strength-
ened by a strong citadel commanding the surroimding district.
The plain opening north of the gorges is one of the most densely peopled in
Algeria. Beni-Amran, on the slopes of the hills, is followed lower down by Blad-
Guifun on the left, and Isserville near the right bank of the Isser, in the centre of
the plain. Near this place is held the great market of the Isser tribe, formerly a
rendezvous for all the inhabitants of Kabylia. But the French conquest has
modified the economic conditions of the country, while the importance of this
market has been further diminished by the foundation of Borj-Mendiel in the
268 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
neio-hbourhood, and especially of the Alsatian colony of Azih-Zamun, officially
known as Ilaussonvillers, some 6 miles farther down. Beyond this point the
Isser winds through its broad valley to the coast near Cape Jinet, a bold basaltic
headland not far from the site of the Roman station of Cissi.
About 4 miles west of the Isser market lies the broad Beni-Aisha Pass, at
present occupied by the busy little town of MenerN-ille. At this point the Tizi-
Uzu branch effects a junction with the main line of railway between Constantine
and Algiers.
Algiers.
Algiers, capital of the " African France," still bears its Arabic name of El-
Jezair, or " the Islets," derived from four reefs now connected with the mainland.
It was founded, in the tenth century, on the ruins of the Eoman Icosiiim, in the
territory of the Beni-Mezghanna tribe, and already in the beginning of the
sixteenth century it had become powerful enough to attract the attention of the
Spaniards, whose occupation of the place, however, lasted only nineteen years.
The pier, constructed by the famous Kheir-ed-Din by connecting the reefs with the
mainland, created a sheltered and commodious harbour, which henceforth secured
for Algiers the first rank amongst the to'WTis on the exposed Mauritanian coast
between Bougie and Mers-el-Kebir. For three centuries it bid defiance to Europe,
thanks partly to the pusillanimity of some and the jealousy of others. Eleven
times besieged or threatened in vain, it was for the first time compelled to lower
the crescent to the British fleet under Lord Exmouth in 1816, and was definitely
occupied by the French in 1830.
At present Algiers holds the foremost position in Africa, not for its population,
in which it is second to Cairo and probably also to Tunis, but as a centre for the
diffusion of European culture throughout the continent. It is also unrivalled for
its picturesque and imposing aspect, presenting a marvellous seaward view which
leaves an indelible impression on the memory. Towards the crest of the hill
crowned by the citadel is seen all that remains of the old town, which from a
distance looks like a quarry of white marble strewn with irregular and rough-hewn
blocks. But the native quarter, which formerly descended quite to the sea, now
stops half-way, being arrested by the regular masses of European houses, which
develop an extensive facade above the quays. South of the Arab town another
quarter has sprung up along the slopes, consisting exclusively of modern dwellings,
whose grey walls and red roofs contrast everywhere with the deep verdure of the
surrounding gardens. Farther on the buildings are again abruptly interrupted by
a green zone of grassy ramparts and wooded mounds. But at JWusfapha, beyond
the enclosures, the city is confinued by the new and more open suburbs crowning
every height, and affording a pleasant retreat to the English and other visitors who
come to pass the winter season in the mild climate of Algiers.
The narrow space enclosed between the cliffs and the sea has compelled the
rising city to develop itself along the coast-line on both sides of the old town,
which down to 1830 was still confined to a triangular space on the hillside, some
ALGIEES.
269
125 acres in extent, and commanded by the kasbali. At that time tlie population
scarcely exceeded forty thousand, although commonly estimated at over one
hundred thousand. The ramparts of this quarter were levelled by the French ;
but the new enclosures have in their turn become too narrow, and towards the
north-west, beyond the Bab-el- Wed, or " River Gate," several suburbs, interrupted
by cemeteries, foUow in succession as far as the interminable Rue de Saint-Eugene.
Fig. 102.— Alqiees IN 1830.
Scale 1 : 22,000.
Depths.
0tol6
Feet.
16 to 32
Feet.
32 Feet and
upwards.
550 Yards.
Southwards also the city is continued by the districts of Agha, Mustapha, and
Belcourt, stretching away beyond the Bab-Azun, the gate where criminals were
crucified, dead or alive. The united communes of Algiers, Saint-Eugene, and
Mustapha have a total length of some 6 miles, although, at many points hemmed
in between the hills and the sea, the city is scarcely more than 200 yards broad.
Notwithstanding this rapid expansion, the " Place du Gouvemement," forming
the largest open space, has remained the chief centre of life and traffic, as it was
270
NORTH- WEST AFEICA.
during the first period of the French occupation. Hound it are grouped the
" New " Mosque, with its towTi clock, the principal market, the Great Mosque, the
Catholic cathedi-al, the Governor's palace, the Hotel dc Yille, and most other
Fig. 103.— Aloiees in 1885.
Scale 1 : 75,000.
,,,'f''^Mm^.„'l ■' ,: .
4 "M
it broenwich
2iL
56
5-6
Arab Old
town. enclosure.
Oto32
Feet.
Depths.
13
32 to 64
Feet.
64 to 160
Feet.
ICO Feet and
upwai'ds.
2,203 Yards.
public buildings. Here also converge all the busiest thoroughfares, and from
this point radiate nearly all the highways for the outskirts and the inland towns. ^
In the city the population has grouped itself in separate zones according to
its origin. Tho French occuj^y all the new quarters, while the Neapolitans,
ALGIERS.
271
Spaniards, and Maltese gra\atate towards the lower parts in tie neighbourliood of
the port and the fisheries. The Jews, who own about half of the shops in the
French districts, reside chiefly half-way down the slope between the Christians
Fig. 104.— Steeet View in the Old Town, Algiees.
and the Mussulmans, the latter being still mainly confined to the labyrinth of
slums stretching thence upwards to the kasbah. This Mussulman quarter, which
has undergone no change since the conquest, is inhabited, as in the time of the
Beys, by a motley gathering of Kabyles, members of the Mzab tribe, immigrants
272
NORTH-WEST AFEICA.
from the Tugurt, Wargla, and Suf oases, and Bambara, Haussa, and other Negroes
from Sudan. An ethnographic survey of the upper town may thus be compared
to a journey in the interior as far as Timbuktu.
Notwithstanding the lofty and somewhat imposing structures erected under
the French administration, the most interesting monimaents arc undoubtedly those
Fig. 105. — MruTAET Lines op Aloiees
Scale 1 : 20,000.
4.»5-
E . of
S'-t-
Military zone.
Domain lauds.
500 Yards.
that date from the Mohammedan period. But of these but few have survived.
Of the mosques, numbering over one hundred and sixty, not more than twenty
now remain, including the graceful mosque of Abd-cr-Rahman Et-Tsalbi, whose
elegant minaret rises above the foliage of the Marengo gardens near the Bab-el-
ALGIEES.
273
"Wed. Some fine Moorlsli houses, all constructed on a uniform plan, have been
preserved in the lower part of the Arab quarter ; but even these have in some
cases lost their characteristic features, being now arranged and fitted up European
fashion. One of the most picturesque Moorish buildings is the public monimient
containing the library of thirty thousand volumes, and the valuable collections of
the archaeological and historical museum. Amongst these are a Venus, a Neptune
from Shershell, and the gruesome plaster casting of a prisoner immured alive in
the walls of a fortress.
From the material standpoint, Algiers has in recent years undergone manv
urgently needed changes, such as the removal both of the coast batteries pre-
venting its natural development north and south, and of the military lines
Fig. 106.— Sidi-Feeeush.
Scale 1 : 75,000.
Depths.
0to82
Feet.
32 to 64
Feet.
64toieo
Feet.
.2,200 Yards.
160 Feet and
upwards.
forming a zone of over 370 acres, which hemmed it in on all sides. As a military
stronghold, Algiers has lost most of its importance under the altered conditions
of modern warfare. The proper site of forts intended to defend the city is
clearly indicated by the crests of the hills on the coast. There is further need
of an abundant supply of good water ; the streets also require to be properly
paved in order to abate the dust nuisance, and the drainage works should forthwith
be completed, in order to get rid of a still more offensive and dangerous nuisance.
The port itself remains to be finished, although great improvements have
already been effected by the construction and extension of two piers of 350 and
700 feet respectively, thus affording greater shelter to the artificial harbour, which
274
NORTH-WEST AFEICA.
now (1898), encloses a basin over 300 acres in extent and easily approached by
large vessels through a deep channel 240 feet wide. By the enclosure of the
open Bay of Agha additional space and safe anchorage have also been secured for
the rapidly increasing trade and shipping of Algiers, which in these respects now
rivals the great French seaports themselves, being surpassed only by those of
Marseilles and Ha\Te. As a port of call, Algiers is much frequented by the French
navj^ and periodically by a large number of steamers plying in the Mediterranean
waters, while a daily service has now been established with Marseilles. The local
fisheries are very productive, but owing to the defective communications with
Fig. 107. — Algeeian Sahei.
Scale 1 : 300,000.
Otoo'i
Feet.
.32 to G4
Feet.
Depths.
C4tolS0
Feet.
180 to SGO
Feet.
C Miles.
.TOO Feet and
upwards.
tlie interior the coasting trade is less developed than that T)f Bougie or Philippe-
villc. The approaches from the west are guarded by the fortified headland of
Sidi-Fcrruah {Sidi-Fvjcj), where the French troops disembarked on Jime 14, 1830,
and where the first skirmishes with the Dey's forces were followed five days after
by the battle of Stawcli, which opened the road to Algiers. In the neighbourhood
of iStaweli are some raegalithic remains, and here a flourishing Trappist establish-
ment has brought under cultivation some 3,000 acres of land.
The h>ahel, or coast district south and south-west of Algiers, has also been
DWEEA— HAMMA.
275
largely reclaimed. On its liigliest point stands tlie health-resort of La Bouzaria
(Bu-Zarea), whence is commanded an extensive view of land and water. South
and south-west stretches the crest of the Sahel, cro-wned with villas and hamlets.
Near El-Biar stands the massive Fort de I'Empereur, and farther south lies Dwira^
the chief town of the Sahel.
South-east of Algiers, on the route skirting the Sahel, the line of coast callages
between Belcourt and Hussein-dcy is interrupted by the Hamma plantations, some
200 acres in extent, which were laid out in 1832 for the purpose of studying the
Kg. 108. -ErFARrg.
Scale 1 •- 28,000.
sF- breenv^/ich 2°S4
e°55'
Canals.
Eailway. '
1,100 Yards.
acclimatisation of useful plants. The experiment has proved most successful, and
few other cities, even in tropical climates, can show finer avenues of palms,
magnolias, bamboos, and banyans. But an ostrich farm attached to the gardens
has not succeeded. Near Hamma the Negroes of Algiers celebrate their annual
" bean-feast," at which is sacrificed an ox crowned with chaplets and decked with
gay ribbons.
South and west of the capital stretches the vast semicircular plain of the Mitija
for a distance of GO miles, and varying in breadth from 10 to 12 miles. This low-
276 NOETH-WEST APRICA.
Ij-ing and unhealthy swampy tract has been gradually reclaimed with great labour
and risk by the European settlers, and although still partly under scrub, is now on
the whole the best cultivated district in Algeria. Beyond McnerviUe, on the route
between Great KabyKa and the IMitija, the first large town is Alma, and in the
neighbouring Ilamiz Valley the chief place is Fonduk, formerly an important station
on the route to the Upper Isser. Fonduk lies 4 miles below the vast barrage which
dams up for irrigation purposes some 500,000,000 cubic feet of water, and beyond
it the Hamiz enters the district of Ruiba, another large village with a departmental
school of agriculture. Between the mouth of the river and Cape Matifu are the
ruins of the Roman city of Rusgunia, which have supplied the materials for many
buildings in Algiers.
In the southern district of the Wed Harrash basin the chief places are Rovigo
and Sidi-Mussa. In a gorge of the Upper Harrash, 5 miles south of Rovigo, are
the saline thermal springs of Hammam Mclwan, frequented by the surrounding
Arabs, and even by the Jews and Moors of Algiers. The Maison-Carrec, so named
from a Turkish barracks now used as a prison, has become the centre of a rapidly
increasing population in the same basin, at the point where the railway from
Algiers branches ofl eastwards to Constantino, and westwards to Oran. Like
Hussein-dey, it may be regarded as an industrial suburb of the capital, from which
it is distant about 6 miles.
A slight eminence in the centre of the Mitija plain is occupied by Bufariky
whose market has from remote times been frequented by the surrounding Arab
tribes. Its fairs are still visited by thousands of natives, with whom are now
associated the European settlers, whose patient industry has gradually converted
this malarious swampy district into a fertile garden. A few miles to the cast is
Shebli, noted for its excellent tobacco.
BlIDA — KOLEA — TiPAZA.
Blula, the chief town in the IVIitija basin, although an ancient place, is first
mentioned in Mediaeval times, when it appears to have borne the name of Mitija,
like the plain whose southern section it commands. Under the Turkish rule it
became a retreat for the wealthy inhabitants of Algiers ; but in the earthquake of
1825 its buildings were overthrown, and half the population buried imderthc ruins.
Then came the sieges and assaults attending the French conquest, reducing it to a
heap of ruins when finally occupied in 1839. Hence the new town presents a
thoroughly European aspect, preserving scarcely a single mosque and a few Arab
houses of the former epoch. Of all Algerian towns it abounds most in orange
groves, the mandarine variety of which is famous throughout the world. Thanks
to the abundant waters of the "Wed-el-Kebir, flowing from the Beni-Salah hills, it
also possesses some mills and factories. Blida will soon become the starting-point
of a railway, which penetrates southwards into the Shiffa valley in the direction of
Laghwat.
BLIDA— KOLEA— TIPAZA.
277
The Shiffa, wMch, after receiving tlie Wed-el-Kebir of Blida, unites witli the
Wed Jer to form the Mazafran, has its source towards the south, amid the hills
commanded by the town of Medea. Beyond El-Afrun, the Oran railway leaving
the plain enters the narrow valley of the Wed Jer, through which it rises to the
ridge separating the Mazafran from the Shiffa basin. North of the railway are
situated the famous springs of Hammam-Righa {Rirha), the most frequented in
Algeria. Even during the Roman period these Aquce Calid(e were a general resort
for invalids and the wealthy classes, as attested by the inscriptions and sculptures
discovered in the district. At present a splendid establishment, surrounded by
Fi^. 109.— BuDA.
Scale 1 : 46,000.
^H.' >^-/^.Avsl'.£.;.j..mA,„...„.,.-'. ^l.>^^,.„.^».^^<^vJlf >^i £lA^ Mix:....'-^.....zy%
L; .. df Greenwich 2° 48'
2°50'
.1,100 Yards.
gardens and plantations, stands in the neighbourhood of the springs, at an altitude
of 2,000 feet above sea-level.
North of the Mitija, the Lower Mazafran basin is commanded by the town of
Eolea, which during the first period of the conquest possessed great strategical
importance as an advanced outpost beyond the Algerian Sahel. The Moors of
Kolea, at present far less numerous than the French and other foreign settlers, are
of Andalusian origin, having founded this place about the middle of the sixteenth
century. On the highest point of the neighbouring hills stands the ancient tomb
of Xobr-er-Rumia, or " Tomb of the Christian Lady," a cyHndrical mass with a
278
NOETH-WEST AFEICA.
peristyle of sixty columns, and surrounded by a graded cone over 100 feet high,
whicli was probably surmounted by a statue. This monument has been identified
with that mentioned by Pomponius Mela as the common mausoleum of a royal
family, probably that of Scylax.
At the western extremity of the Mitija stands the picturesque village of
Marengo, one of the chief agricultural centres of the whole district. Its fertile
fields and gardens are irrigated by an artificial lake on the TVcd Meurad, formed by
a dam which retains about 70,000,000 cubic feet, with a discharge of nearly 100
gallons per second. Below Marengo the "Wed Meurad, after its junction with the
"Wed Burkika, is known as the Nador, which penetrates a gorge overlooked by the
escarpments of the Shenwa, and reaches the coast near the little port of Tipaza.
Fig. 110. — Tomb of the Cheistian Lady.
This place has succeeded an ancient Roman city, which has been partly submerged
either by subsidence of the ground, or by some phenomenon of local erosion.
Burkika itself is a name of fatal memory, this district having proved the grave of
many unhappy exiles banished during the first years of the Second Empire. The
true name of the river, Avritten Wed Meurad in the French ofiicial nomenclature,
would appear to be Wcd-el-Merdh, or the " Eiver of Maladies."
SlIERSHELL TeNES — BoGHARI.
The almost isolated Dahra uplands, skirted on the south by the valley of the
Shelif, and connected with the rest of the northern highlands by the low sill under
SHEESHELL.
279
whicli passes the Algiers- Oran railway, contain only four towns, two of which
Shershell and Tenes, lie on the coast, and a third, Miliana, on a headland over-
looking the Shelif Yalley. Nor are there many French settlements in a district
from which the colonists are repelled hy the rugged character of the soil and the
deficient supply of water.
Shershell, lying west of the Shenwa heights, is one of the old cities of Algeria.
Twice restored, by the Andalusian Moors and again by the French, it appears at
the dawn of history under the Punic appellation, of lol. But its fame dates from
Kg. 111. — Isthmus of Tipaza.
Scale 1 : 150,000.
^ ^
0to32
Feet.
32 to 64
Feet.
Dep'bs.
64 to 180
Feet.
ISO to 3G0
Feet.
£60 Feet and
upwards.
. 3 Miles.
the Eoman epoch, when Juba the Younger made it the capital of his kingdom, and
gave it the name of Ccesarea, which it still retains under the greatly modified form
of Shershell. This " most splendid colony of Caesarea " has left numerous monu-
ments, notably the thermal baths, where was found the beautiful statue known as
the " Yenus of Shershell," now removed to the museum of Algiers. In 1840,
when the modern French town was built on the old ruins, a perfectly preserved
hippodrome was discovered, which has since become a mere depression in the ground,
the materials having been carried off for building purposes.
280
NOETH-WEST APEICA.
Standln"- between two columns on the route to Zurich are still visible the
superb remains of a triple-arched aqueduct, which supplied several extensive
cisterns, and which is the only monimient of the Roman epoch that has been
restored. Shershell also possesses a small museum, the most interesting object in
which is the fragment of an Egyptian statue. The port, about 5 acres in extent,
is formed by a cirque protected from the north-west winds by the islet of Joinville.
But it is exposed to the dangerous north winds, during the prevalence of which it
is inaccessible to shipping.
Fig. 112. — Shershell.
Scale 1 : 35,000.
h ^ or Greenwich
Oto32
Feet.
Depths.
32 to 61
Feet.
64 Feet nud
upwards.
1,100 Yards.
"West of Shershell follow the modern settlements of Novi and Gura'ia, and the
ruins of the ancient Guuugis, the latter occupying near the mouth of the Wed
Dahmus a much better position as a seaport than the neighbouring Tcncs. This
X^lace, lying almost in the centre of the Dahra coast between Tipaza and Mosta-
ganem, owes its relative importance rather to the iron, copper, lead, and silver
mines of the surrounding district. Successor of the Roman Cartcnncv (or Car
TenncB, that is ** Cape Tcnnaj," in Berber), it consists of two quarters, the old town
TENES— BOGHAEI.
281
probably occupying tbe site of the old Phcenician settlement, and Tenes, properly
so called, standing balf a mile farther down at the mouth of the Wed Allala. Its
port, lying to the north-east, forms an artificial basin 60 acres in extent, well
sheltered, but inaccessible in rough weather.
Fig. 113.— Texes.
Scale 1 : 30,000.
I°i8'
t . oT breenwich
I" 13'
Depths.
0tol6
Feet.
16 to 32
Feet.
82 to 80
Feet.
80 to 160
Feet.
1,100 Yards.
160 Feet and
upwards.
The inhabitants of the Dahra uplands are mostly of Berber origin, and some
of the tribes, such as the Zeriffas and Ashashas, who live near the coast to the
south' west of Tenes, till recently spoke a dialect akin to that of the Kabyles. But
elsewhere the speech and customs of the Arabs have long prevailed, and most of
AFRICA I.
282
NOETH-WEST AFEIOA.
the tribes live in tents, their love of trees alone betraying their Berber blood. In
the centre of the district is the pleasant little town of Mazuna, which lies in a
charming valley watered by streams flowing to the Shelif. Mazuna is the birth-
place of Mohammed Ben Ali-es-Senusi, founder of the powerful order which
everywhere preaches a return to the pure teachings of Islam, and hatred of Turk
and Christian alike. Farther west, the heights of Nckmaria are crowned with an
Fig. 114.— GOEGES OF THE ShELIF.
Scale 1 : 180,000.
'fMsmf^w,
"^s^
"SiT^ir' :^^"'"^ "^
56
.
■»
«.
* *
\ -
'^
> - -li
55
50
• -<■
1.^^
h . oT (jrecnwich S
3 Miles.
cld fort, beneath which are the stalactite caves of unhappy memory, where, in 1845,
Pelissier caused the Ulcd-Iliah tribe to be smoked to death.
Below its confluence with the Nahr "Wassel, the Shelif leaves the region of
plateaux, penetrating through the gorges of the Atlas down to the longitudinal
valley which separates the Dahra from the AVarscnis uplands. Near the entrance
of the defile stands the village of Boyhari (Bukrari), a future station on the
projected railway between Algiers and Laghwat. On the crest of the neigh-
MEDEA.
283
bouring Mil the IMzabites have erected a Kmr, as a fortified depot for the aKa,
cereals, wool, and other produce of the plateau. North-west of this market a bluff
3,300 feet high is occupied by the entrenched camp of Boghar, or Bughar, that is,
the Cave, constructed in 1839 by Abd-el-Kader to command the gorges of the
Shelif, and reduced by the French in 1841. From the citadel the view stretches
across the southern steppes separated by the Jebel Amur from the boundless
solitudes of the Sahara.
Medea — Mostaganem — Matamore.
Medea, the Midia or Lemdia of the Arabs, occupies in the Shelif basin one of
Pig. 115. — Medea.
Scale 1 : 150,000.
r
36
fiirm-
X^-
- ,'^.zeh/^^ ': -^- '^' .
^\
"- ^' my
36'
.36'
>.-y5;^-^,^fe ai^.i, .afe^,.i--;ga^:.--. i^s
" e:^-£^(a<f^*ijf.
A- M ',-.y^ ; - : ■.'tM»f:(<tSi'.. .
t ^ of breenwich 2° 4-5'
0°50'
3 Miles.
the highest points of the highlands skirting the northern side of the Mitija plain.
It stands at an altitude of over 3,000 feet, near the southern foot of Mount Nador
(3,470 feet), whence are visible the crests of all the surrounding heights from the
Warsenis to the Jurjura highlands. Medea, former capital of the Titteri district,
284
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
was one of the most fiercely contested towns in Algeria during the first period of
the conquest. Here is a remarkable two-arched aqueduct ; but few other remains
have been found of the Roman city which has been replaced by the modem town.
The district yields excellent corn, wine, and vegetables.
After receiving the streams flowing from the Medea and Jendel hills, the Shelif
sweeps by the eminence occupied by Amura, the " Fortunate," successor of the
Roman Sufasar. Beyond this point it trends westwards, and near Lavarande enters
the broad low-lying plain traversed by the railway between Algiers and Oran.
North-east of Lavarande the nearly horizontal terrace of Zakkar-el-Gharbi is
Fig. 116. — MiLiANA, Sill op Affeeville.
Scale 1 : 150,000.
V/est of,t ' ^f'^e^^''^'
3 Miles.
occupied by the town of Miliana, at an altitude of 2,460 feet. From this com-
manding position a view is afforded of the vast amphitheatre of blue hills stretching
beyond the sharp peaks of the Warsenis. The present town, rebuilt by the
French, preserves no remains of the Roman MalUana, and very few of the more
recent Arab buildings. The neighbouring vineyards yield a highly esteemed
wine.
West of Affreville and Lavarande in the Shelif Valley follow several populous
villages, such as Duperre and Saint-Ci/prien des Attaf, the latter noteworthy as the
only Arab community converted to Catholicism. Its members, however, are
exclusively orphans or foundlings rescued during the famine of 1867, and brought
TIAEET— MOSTAGANEM— MATAMOEE.
285
up aloof from their kindred. Fartlier on the railway passes by Wed Fodda, some
miles below whicb Orleansville, capital of the Lower SheKf Valley, was founded in
1843 on the site of El-Asnam. Here stood the church of the Oppidum Tingitei,
dating from the fourth century, of which a crj^t and mosaic pavement still
remain.
Near the confluence of the Shelif and Wed Eiu stands the large village of
Inkermann, while the neighbouring Mount Guezzul (3,580 feet) is occupied by
Tiaret {Tiharet, Tihert), which in 1843 succeeded as capital of the district to
Takdemt, or New Tiaret, chosen by Abd-el-Kader in 1836 as the central stronghold
Fig. 117. — MOSTAGANEM.
Scale 1 : 20,000.
0°5'
0°G'
Depths.
Otoie
Feet.
32 Feet and
upwards.
550 Yards.
of his Idngdom, and destroyed by the French in 1841. South-west of the two
Tiarets, and in the same basin of the Mina, Hes the Berber town of Frenda, east of
which three northern spurs of the Jebel AMidar, or " Green Hills," are surmounted
by the so-called jedars, quadrangidar structures some 60 feet high, terminating
above in step pyramids. On the neighbouring cliffs are some prehistoric sculptures
and colossal dolmens, one of whose blocks is said to be no less than 150 feet long.
Tiaret will soon be connected, by a railway already in progress, with the ancient
town of Mostaganem, which stands near the coast on a cliff over 300 feet high,
divided by a ravine into two quarters. To the east is the military town of
^80 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
Matamore, to the west Mostaganem proper, which has been ahnost entirely rebuilt in
the European style. During the sway of Kheir-ed-Din in the sixteenth cent-ury
Mostao-anem was one of the great cities of Algeria, and before the opening of the
Algiers-Oran railway it formed the commercial centre of the Shelif basin. At
present it has fallen to the position of a secondary town with an exposed roadstead,
and without railway communication with the interior. South and west are some
populous villages, of which the largest is Abukir, and the most celebrated Mazagran,
memorable for the gallant defence of its small French garrison in 1840.
Near the source of the river Makta lies the modern town of Saida, which is the
central station of the railway running from Arzeu across the plateaux, beyond the
rcErion of the shotts, in the direction of the southern wastes. Some six miles
farther south is the large ^dllage of Ain-el-Hajar, a centre of the alfa industry,
peopled almost exclusively by Spaniards, On a southern terrace of the Beni-
Shugran uplands stands Mascara, or the " permanent camp," a former capital of
Algeria, and at present one of the chief towns of an arrondissement in the province
of Oran. As a commercial and agricultural centre Mascara still enjoys consider-
able importance. About 12 miles to the south-west are the mineral waters of
Bu-IInnefia, kno^vn to the Romans under the name of Aquce Sirenscs. In the
Mascara district prehistoric monuments, as well as the remains of large extinct
animal species, are numerous. Here were found the skeletons of the elephas
atlanticus, and of a variety of the camel, showing that this animal, which was not
found in Mauritania during the early historic period, formed part of the local fauna
at an older geological epoch.
Perregaux, which marks the spot where the Algiers-Oran and Arzeu-Saida
railways cross each other, enjoys some importance as a depot for agricultural
produce. The district is watered by canals derived from the Habra, in whose
valley has been constructed the largest artificial lake in Algeria, containing at
times some 1,400,000,000 cubic feet of water. Its barrage, which is 1,480 feet
long and 110 feet high, and which has occasionally given way, was constructed by
a financial company which farms a domain of 65,000 acres in the Macta valley
below the Ilubra and Sig confluence. The centre of this estate is Debrousseville,
which is surrounded by extensive vineyards.
Arzeu — Oran.
Notwithstanding its Arab name, Sidi bel Abbes, on the banks of the Mekerra
(Sig), is quite a modern place, dating only from the year 1845. It is the capital
of an arrondissement and one of the most charming and flourishing towns in
Algeria. North of it and on the same river lies the new town of Saint-Denis, in
the centre of a rich and well-cultivated district. Beyond this point the Macta,
formed by the junction of the Sig and Habra, reaches the coast near the little
harbour of Port aux Ponies, north-west of which is the flourishing seaport of Arzeu,
one of the best havens on the exposed Algerian seaboard. Occupying the site of
AEZEU.
287
the Roman Portiis Magnus, Arzeu has of late years acquired fresh importance as
the terminus of the railway which taps the alfa districts of the upland plateaux.
Besides alfa, it exports salt, chlorine, soda, and other chemicals, either collected or
Fig. 118.— Aezeu.
Scale 1 : 80,000.
0°20'
West ©"T Greenwich
0°i6
Depths.
0tol6
Feet.
16 to 32
Feet.
32 to 64
Feet.
64 to 180
Feet.
180 Feet and
upwards.
3,300 YardB.
manufactured on the banks of the saline Lake El-Mclah, in which basin about two
million tons of salt are yearly deposited. Some Roman ruins arc scattered along
the beach, at one spot numerous enough to take the name of " Old Arzeu." In
288
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
the neighbourhoocl tlie largest places are Saint-Leu and Saint-Cloud, the latter
forming the intermediate station between Arzeu and Oran.
OraUy the Wahran or Guharan of the Arabs, was long the first commercial
mart in Algeria, and for a time rivalled Algiers itself in wealth and population.
Founded at the beginning of the tenth century by the Andalusian Moors, it soon
acquired importance, thanks to the neighbouring harbour of Mcrs-cl-Kehir, or the
** Great Port," sheltered by the Jebel Santon headland from the dangerous north
and north-west winds. This harbour of refuge, the Partus Bivinus of the Eomans,
Kg. 119.— OEiN, 1
Scale 1 : 90,000.
West of Greenvvich 0°4O
0°37'
Depths.
Oto32
Feet.
32 to 64
Feet.
64 to 160
Feet.
3,300 Yards.
is encircled by steep cliffs, affording no space for a large town. Hence Oran lies
at the extremity of the bay, where the hills disappear, kvuing a wide opening
landwards. From the strategic point of view this breach also offers great advan-
tages, being defended by a natural fortress, adding greatly to the strength of the
enclosures.
After a Spanish occupation of nearly three lumdrcd years, Oran fell into the
hands of the Turks in 1708. The Spaniards, returning in 1732, were not finally
ORAN.
289
expelled till 1792, two years after the place had been ruined by an earthquake and
a fire. Since its occupation by the French in 1831, the Spanish defensive works
have been restored, and Oran rendered almost impregnable, at an enormous
expenditure of labour and money. At present it covers a space at least five times
more extensive than the old town, whose three thousand inhabitants were crowded
in between the amphitheatre of hills and the headland commanded by the now
useless fortifications of the Chateau-Neuf. Here the Ain-Euina ravine has been
filled in to connect the western quarters with those of the Kargiienta suburb,
stretching away in the direction of Arzeu. The chief public buildings are group'^d
Fig. 120.— Plain of the Andaiusiaiis.
Scale 1 : 180^000.
West oT ureeo»v»ch 0°SO
0%5
Depths.
0 to 180
Feet.
180 Feet and
upwards.
3 Miles.
towards the centre of the town, on the intermediate terrace separating the marina
from the railway station.
In Oran the French, including the naturalised Jews, are stiU exceeded in
number by the Spaniards, who monopoHse some of the local industries. The
Mussulmans, who form a very smaU minority of diverse origin, are mostly confined
to the southern district of Jahli, commonly known as the "Black Village." But
whatever their nationality or religion, the inhabitants are ahnost exclusively
occupied with trade, although science and letters are represented by the most
important geographical and archaeological society in Algeria, besides a library
and small museum occupying a part of the town haU. Here alfa grass, mineral
290 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
ores, and com are shipped in exchange for European wares. A pier over half a
mile Ion"-, which springs from the foot of Fort Lamoune (La Moime, Mona),
advances to depths of 65 feet, enclosing a space of about 60 acres, divided by
secondary piers into secondary basins, which afford sufficient accommodation for
the largest vessels. The great advantage of the port of Oran is its proximity to
Spain, being only 120 miles, or eight hours by steam from Carthagena. Its total
yearly trade, which has doubled during the last ten years, now exceeds 1,570,000
tons, exclusive of the local fisheries, valued at about £40,000.
West of the Jebel Santon stretches the so-called Plain of the Andalusians, a
triangular tract terminating northwards at Cape Falcon, and laid out in -vineyards
dotted over with pleasant hamlets. It takes its name from the Andalusian Moors,
who after their expulsion from Spain settled here in large numbers. Four miles
south of this point the unfinished railway branching off from the main line to
Algiers in the direction of Marocco passes by Misscrghin, one of the chief agri-
cultural centres of the department. Near the neighbouring scbkha, which has
already been partly drained, follow at short intervals the towns of Bii-Tklis,
Lurmel and Er-Rahel, and beyond the Rio Salado, but still in the same basin,
Ain-Temushent, the Timici of the Romans, on a high cliff in a rich mineral district.
South of this place are the famous onyx mines of Ain-Tekbaleky already known to
the Romans, and still the richest in the province.
Tlemcen — Nemours.
In the basin of the Upper Isser, an eastern branch of the Tafna, the chief
commune is that of Lamoriciere, a future station of the railway intended to connect
Oran with Tlemcen through Sidi-bel- Abbes. Tlemcen, on a small afiluent of the
Isser, at the northern foot of a rocky eminence over 2,600 feet high, ranks fifth
for population and first for historic memories of all the Algerian towns. It is
pleasantly situated on a terrace planted with fruit-trees of all sorts, whence the
Roman colony took the name of Potnaria. But the Roman settlement lay more
to the south-east, where are still visible the remains of Agadir, or the " Ramparts."
Its materials served as a quarry to build the western town of Tagrart, now known
as Tlemcen, which became the metropolis of the great Zenata Berber confederation.
Frequently besieged, stormed, wasted with hunger and the sword, it nevertheless
rose to great power during the fifteenth century, when it was said to contain
twenty-five thousand families.
At that flourishing epoch it rivalled the great European cities as a centre of
trade, the industries, wealth, the arts and sciences; like Cordova, Seville, and
Grenada, it furnished a fresh proof of the high degree of cidture to which the
Berber race is capable of attaining. The minarets and cupolas of its mosques, its
carvings and mural arabesques perpetuate the renown of the Zenata artists, while
the chronicles record the artistic marvels displayed at the Court of Tlemcen.
TLEMCEN.
291
Here long resided Ibn-Khaldun, the famous author of the " History of the
Berbers."
Tlemcen passed from the Spaniards to the Turks in 1553, when most of the
inhabitants emigrated to Marocco ; and after its occupation by the French in 1843
Fig. 121. — Tlemcen.
Scale 1 : 125,000.
E . of Gr
cVi
3 Miles.
it was mostly rebuilt in the European style, with regular streets and squares,
uniform military and municipal buildings. But what remains of the old town is
still distinguished for its picturesque appearance, quaint Moorish houses, and
292 NORTH-WEST AFEICA,
haudsomo Berber mosques. Amongst its arcliitectural curiosities arc the nave of
Fiff. 122.— Street View in Tlemcen.
the Great Mosque, supported on seventy-two cohimns, and especially that of
Abu'l-IIussau, disposed in ilirec sections supported on onyx columns. One of the
TLEMCEN.
293
inscriptions collected in the museum is tlie epitaph on the tomb of Boabdil, last
king of Grenada, who died here, and not, as traditionally supposed, in Marocco.
At El-Eubbad, over a mile to the south-east of Tlemcen, stands the famous kubba
Kg. 123.~M0TITH OF THE TaFNA.
Scale 1 : 85,000.
Otol6
Feet.
16 to 32
Feet.
uepths.
32 to 80
Feet.
80 to 160
Feet.
1,100 Yards.
ICO Feet and
upwards.
of Sidi Bu-Medin, the learned i\ndalusian Moor, who taught at Bagdad and in
Spain during the twelfth century. Other historic monuments of some interest are
294
NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
found at Mansura, 2 miles to the south-west, including a graceful minaret over
130 feet high, half of which, built, according to the local legend, by Christian
hands, has become detached longitudinally, leaving the portion erected by the
faithful intact.
The European settlement of Remchi, conveniently situated below the confluence
of the Isser and Tafna, forms the chief station between Tlemcen and its natural
outport, BeniSafy which, notwithstanding a badly protected harbour, does an active
Kg. 124.— Nemoxtes.
Scale 1 : 40,000.
ne?t oi. uronn'.vicn
DeptbB.
0to32
Feet.
32 to 80
Feet.
80 Feet and
upwards.
1,100 Yarda.
export trade, especially in tlie excellent iron ores worked by over one thousand
miners in the neighbouring metalliferous district. Over a mile from the mouth
of the Tafna lies the island of Rashgun, the Arshgul of the Arabs, which affords
a shelter to the approaclies of the river. Near the lighthouse at the uortli end of
the island are the ruins of an Arab town, and other remains arc strewn over the
whole seaboard. North-cast of Beni-Saf stand the vestiges of the Roman port of
NEMOUES.
296
Camarata. South of Rashgun are the scattered stones of Takehrit, or the "Vaults,"
occupying the site of the ancient Siga, and to the west the fragments of an ancient
enclosure not far from Cape Honein, a name transformed by seafarers into that of
JSFoah. At this point, overlooked by the escarpments of the Jebel Tajara, stood
the important Arab town of Honein, one of the outports of Tlemcen before the
conquest of Oran by the Spaniards.
Between the Tafna and the Marocco frontier the modem French seaport of
Nemours occupies the site of the Arab town of Jemda-el-Ghazawat {Razawat), the
Fig. 125.— Nemottes.
Eoman Ad Fratres. This Latin name is explained by the two rocks, still known
as the " Two Brothers," which lie oS the coast to the west ; while the Arabic
appellation of the " Corsairs' Mosque " recalls the time when this creek was a nest
of pirates. East of the city rises the bluff on which stood the corsairs' stronghold
and mosque. The port is not sufficiently sheltered to give access at all times to
the steamers and sailing-vessels which place Nemours in direct commimication
with Oran and with the Spanish ports of Melilla on the Marocco coast, and
Almeria and Malaga on the opposite Andalusian seaboard. Like the Berber town of
Nedroma, lying 14 miles to the south, it is surrounded by hills, which aboimd in rich
iron, manganese, and other mineral ores. Near the kubba of Sidi-Brahim, to the
296 NORTH-WEST AFEICA.
south-west, the Arab war of indopeadence was brought to a close by the surrender
of Abd-el-Kader in 1847.
Compared with the coastlands and uplands of the Tell, the southern plateaux
and regions draining to the Sahara are very sparsely peopled, the Arab and Berber
tribes here occupying vast spaces out of all proportion to their numbers, while the
French settlers, exclusive of the naturalised Jews, numbered scarcely eight thousand
altogether in 1897. Yet the ruins of Roman towns and farmsteads in the upland
valleys of the Aures and other districts show that many of these extensive tracts
enjoy a soil and climate highly favourable to European civilisation.
Aures — ^Batna;
The Aures, or Auras, properly so called — that is, the " Cedar Mountains," accord-
ing to some etymologists — is comprised between the course of the Wed-el-Kantara
and that of the "Wed-cl-Arab, and is inhabited exclusively by peoples of Berber
speech, but of diverse origin. Although there has evidently been much displace-
ment of populations since the E-oman epoch, the country was never occupied by the
Turks nor reduced by the French till the year 1845. Yet the latter are already
regarded as the descendants of the " Human," or old Roman colonists, and the
inscriptions and other local monuments constitute in the eyes of the natives their
most legitimate title to the possession of Algeria. "The Rumi, sons of the Ruman,
have only resumed the patrimony of their fathers." To these are attributed all
the ruins of the land, and especially the circular graves still scattered in hundreds
over the uplands of the Mons Aurasius. Roman blood probably betrays itself in
the prevalent fair type, and some of the most important tribes even as far south as
the Saharian oases stiU bear the name of Rumaniya. The current Berber dialect
retains many Latin terms, such as the names of the months, hignu (from pinus ?),
the cedar-tree, hu ini {bonus annus), the salutation at the New Year, and others.
Although traditionally converted to Islam by a certain " Saint " Sidi Abdullah,
before the French occupation most of the natives were Mohammedans only in
name. But Arabic having been adopted as the official language, both the Arab
speech and religion have since been widely diffused amongst these Berber high-
landers. The indigenous dialects, Zenatia in the eastern, Tmazirt (Temazirha) in
the western districts, often take the general name of Teshawit (vulgarly Shawia),
from the Arabic Shawi, " Shepherds," and this term is even collectively applied to
all the Algerian Berbers, except the Kabyles.
The rising French settlement of Khemhcla^ conveniently situated at the con-
verging point of several fertile valleys, commands the north-eastern Aures district.
It occupies the site of the Roman Mascula, and numerous ruins are found, especially
towards the north in the direction of the old Roman town of Bagai. Megalithic
monuments, such as graves surroxmdcd by a circle of stones, are also scattered in
thousands over this region. Sidi-Naji, at the south-eastern extremity of the Aures,
in tho Wed-el-Arab basin, is noted for its handsome mosque, and in the district
AUEES-BATNA.
297
are several influential zawyas (religious communities), such, as that of Khaimn
in the Jebel Sheshar, and Liana near the old Roman military post of Bades {Ad
Badias).
West of the Thugarin pass stretches the extensive plain which seems destined
to become the centre of European colonisation in the Aures, but whose rich
pastures are meantime held in common by all the branches of the Ulad-Daud
tribe. Here begins the valley of the Wed-el-Abiad, which has a south-westerly
course, losing itself in the Sahara below the Tranimin gorges. The nearly
parallel "Wed Abdi Yalley is held by the brave Ulad-Abdi tribe, whose stronghold
Fig. 126. — The Sheliya and Plaix of Meduta.
Scale 1 : 150,000.
bneenwi'cW
R.R.
Koman ruins.
3 Miles.
of Nam was razed by the French in 1850. The present capital of the tribe is
Menaa, which may bo regarded as the central point of the Aures highlands.
Batna, commanding the northern districts of this region, is at once an
important military station and the chief administrative centre in the southern
portion of the province of Constantino. .Tt occupies between the Aures and
Tugucur uplands a position analogous to that of Khenshela, lying in a plain
which affords direct communication in one direction with the Runimcl, m another
with the Ilodna basin. Here converge all tke more important natural routes soutli
AFRICA I. X
298 noeth-tvt:st afkica.
of Constantine ; hence tlie nciglibouring Lamhc^sis (Lambcssa), Lad been cliosen by
the Romans as the head-quarters of the famous Tcrtia Augusta legion, and the
centre of Xumidia Miliciana.
LAMBESSA.
299
Lam BESS A.
The New Lambassis (Nouvelle Lambese), as Batna was at first officially called,
Gannot pretend to rival the splendours of the old Lambaesis, the Tazzitt of the
Fig. 128. — FUM KSANTINA.
Scale 1 : 2S.000.
Mefralithic Tombs.
1,100 Yards.
Berbers, which covered an area of several square miles, and whose remarkable
ruins are still far from having been thoroughly explored. Here Leon Renier
300
XOETII-WEST AFEICA.
alone deciphered over one thousand inscriiJtions, and the great collection of
'• Algerian Inscriptions " already contains over fifteen hundred from this jDlace,
including some of great historic value. The sites have been determined of two
camps, one that of the Third Legion, the best preserved of all in the Eoman world.
In its centre still stands a large portion of the Pra^torium, now converted into a
museum. Of the forty triimiphal arches seen by Peyssonnel in the last century,
when the cit}* was still almost entire, four only are now standing. Most of the
other buildings, except the tombs lining the Roman way, have also been demolished
to supply materials for the construction of barracks, houses, and prisons.
Fig. 129. — Ancient Eojian Towns in North Auees.
Scale 1 : 600,000.
12 Miles.
The henshir of Timcfjail, 12 miles east of Lambessa, is all that remains of the
Roman TJuuniKjaa, which was even a more magnificent place than its neighbour. South
of this point the narrow Fum Ksantina gorge, separating the plateaux of Bu-Driasen
and Kharruba, is crowned with circular tombs, pillars, and the remains of some
large building>. In the Batna district arc also many other vestiges of the pre-
historic and Roman epochs, the most remarkable of which is the Mcdraccn (Med-
fjhasen), on the margin of a sebkha 18 miles north-east of Batna, and not far from
the Ain- Yakut station on the Constantino railway. This is a sepulchral monument
in the same style as that of the Christian Lady near Tipaza, consisting of a
circular mass, 080 feet round, supporting a cone and surrounded by sixty columns.
BU-SADA.
301
This was evidently a mausoleum of the Xumidian kings, older than that erected
by Juba near lol Cocsarea. In the district are several other conic tombs, but of
smaller dimensions. Westwards in the direction of Selif follow several other
Eoman towns, such as Diana Veteranorum, the present Zana and Zami (Zraia),
where was found a curious custom-house tariff attesting the former importance of
the trade between Mauritania and Sudan.
Fi"-. 130. — A Nail Arab Woiujn-.
The present capital of the extensive Hodna basin is Bu-Sdda, the "Happy
Abode," a picturesque place perched on the brow of a hill in the midst of gardens
and palm- groves. Since the French occupation in 1849 its trade has been
considerably developed, and its commercial relations now extend northwards to
the coast towns, southwards to the oases of the Sahara. South of this place the
powerful confederation of the l^oA Arabs occupies a vast territory, stretching
westwards to the Jebel Amur, eastwards to the Ziban district. These Arabs,
302
NOETH-WEST APEICA.
-whose camping-grounds are recognised by the red-brown colour of their tents,
breed camels on the steppes and sheep on the hills, cultivating cereals in the
depressions, and elsewhere serving to maintain commercial intercourse between the
Sahara and the Tell.
The military port of Jelfa, south-west of Bu-Sada on the route between Algiers
and Laghwat, occupies the centre of the Nail territory. Notwithstanding the
brackish character of the waters flowing north-west to the Zahrez-el-Gharbi
sebkha, the formerly arid slopes in this district have been successfully reclaimed
and planted with the Italian poplar and other large trees. These favourable
results cannot fail to encourage similar efforts on the part of the European
colonists, who have begun to settle in the upland valleys especially of the Jebel
Fig. 131. — The Btt-Khail MotrOT"ArN3.
Scale 1 : 320,000.
IC ^rues.
Amur. But however arid in appearance the rocks of this jagged parting-lino
between the plateaux and tlic Sahara, they have a beauty of their own, produced by
their bold outlines, sharp profile, and brilliant tints. There are few more impres-
sive sights than the steep cliffs of the Jebel-bu-Khail, streaked in colours caused
by erosive action, and forming the scarp of a regular jjlateau slightly depressed
towards the centre. Ain-es-Sttltaii, near this district, marks tlie extreme limit of
the Boman Empire in this direction. A few ruins, the last occurring south from
Algiers, attest the presence of the Bonians at a point beyond wliich the French
have already pushed the frontiers of their North African po.ssessions.
Suuth-'vsest of Batua the route towards the desert and the railway now in pro-
BISKEA— TOLGA. 303
gress takes the direction of the El-Biar pass (3,630 feet), where the road begins to
fall, at first imperceptibly, towards the Sahara. The Wed-el-Kantara, a small
stream descending abruptly through a succession of cascades from a height of over
330 feet, skirts the highway, swollen by other torrents from all the lateral valleys.
The debris strewn at the issue of these gorges are supposed by 31. Grad to be
moraines of glacial origin. Eight and left rise the limestone cliffs, broken by
faults, bristling with jagged peaks, offering here and there scarcely sufficient
humus for the growth of a few shrubs. But suddenly the cliffs retire and the
stream rushes over a cascade spanned by a one-arched Eoman bridge, whence the
name of El-Kantara, the " bridge " in a pre-eminent sense, a solitary link between
the Tell and the Sahara. Of all the many romantic sights in Algeria, none is
more striking than this, where the sharpest contrast is presented between the
rocky plateaus and the Saharian oases. The Arabs are firmly persuaded, and the
belief is partly justified by the facts, that all the moisture-bearing clouds from the
Tell are arrested by the summits of the El-Kantara cliffs, where " the rain dies
away." On the one hand is the region of winter, on the other of summer ; above
the Tell, below the Sahara ; here the hills are black and the colour of rain, there
rose-tinted and the colour of fine weather.
Biskra — Tolga.
Biskra, capital of the Zibans, who stretch eastwards to the Tunisian frontiers,
occupies an important strategic position at the approach to the desert. At this
point of the ancient Mauritania the French plough the land already tilled by the
Romans, and the present Fort Sainf-Gennaia rises not far from the site formerly
occupied by Ad Plscinam. But farther south no Roman remains have yet been
discovered, although legend speaks of a "Ruman" host annihilated by the nomads
near Tame ma, and of another swallowed up in the Temassin swamps.
Like the kasbah that it has replaced, the French fort at Biskra has been
erected above the oasis whose waters it commands. Here the imited stream of the
Wed-el-Kantara and Wed Abdi still discharges a small volume even in summer.
The Biskra oasis, which is planted with one himdred and forty thousand date-
palms and some thousand olive trees, said to derive from Roman times, has lately
become a winter resort, where many invalids from the north of France seek health
beneath an ever- cloudless sky.
In the Zab Shergui, or Eastern Zab, the oases are developed in a narrow zone
skirted on one side by the escarpments, on the other by the saline margin of the
Melghigh depression. In this region the most extensive palm-groves, south-east
of Biskra, are those of S'uU-Okha, so named from the mosque raised above the tomb
of the famous conqueror. Here probably perished, in the sixtieth year of the
Hegira, the founder of Kairwan, the leader who, according to the legend, spurred
his steed beyond the Maghreb-el- Aksa into the surf of the Atlantic. The zawya
304
NOETn-AYEST AFEICA.
cnclosinji" his tomb has become the reli prions metropolis of tlic whole country, and
one of the famous scbools of Mussulman law in Algeria.
Yicc. 132. — "FM.vxar.vTSD NEor.Ess, Bi'tjua.
South-west of Biskra a numerous group of oases take the name of Zah Dahri,
the Xorthcrn Zab, and Zab Gtirhli, the Southern Zab, names scarcely justified by
their relative position to the whole archipelago of the Zibans. Here also the
STREET VIEW IN BISKRA.
BISKEA— TOLGA.
305
Roman arms had. penetrated, and the capital of these oases still possesses a Roman
castle, whose inhabitants have replaced the roof by a layer of earth supporting a
few date-palms. The palm groves of the Northern Zab yield the finest dates in
the country ; but the cultivated tracts do not suffice for the support of the
inhabitants, although fresh oases have recently been created by the French settlers.
The capital of the archipelago is ToJga, a great religious centre, with some
fifteen mosques and a zawya even more powerful than that of Sidi Okba, attracting
to its school of Arab jurisprudence as many as one thousand students. Its political
influence also, always conciliatory towards the French, makes itself felt as far as
the Tunisian frontier. In the Lishana oasis, north-west of Tolga, a few ruins mark
Fig. 133.— Oases of the Xoetheen axd Southern Zibaxs.
Scale 1 : .300,000.
£/Bof^
0 V J^^^"^^S?,^ Our/s/.^X^^^t^f^
Lious
^•^"^i
5° 20'
6 Miles.
the site of Zaacha, which after its heroic defence and destruction by the French in
1849, has never been rebuilt.
South of Biskra, the Tugurt route, which will soon be accompanied by a railway,
traverses the newly created oasis of Um-el-Thiur, and after sldrting the northern
bank of the Jeddi,' follows the west side of the Shott Melghigh and its southern
prolongation, the Shott Merwan. Here the oases run north and .south in the plain
of the Wed Righ, beneath which the underground waters are tapped at intervals
by old and modern artesian wells. Thanks to the recent borings of the French
engineers, the palm groves of Mghaier now contain some fifty thousand trees, Avhilc
extensive tracts have been brought under cultivation in the Ughlana and Tamcrna
districts. Since the middle of the century the supply of water has increased four-
fold, changing the whole aspect of the Wed Righ, and causing new oases and
villages to spring up in all directions.
806
ITOETH-WEST AFEICA.
^Vei) Rig II — Tugurt.
Fig.
134.— The Wed Eioh Oasic
Scale 1 : 600,000.
£1 Berd/,
55
'^--^JBuTippn»-el-Djl.cli ol«
c
Sidi RishedV
I
The Ruaolia (Rurha, Euara), or inhabitants of the High, numbering about
iiirtecn thousand, belong to the Zenata Berber family ; but their dark colour and
Negroid features betray a large inter-
mixture of black blood. Of late years
their material condition has greatly im-
proved. They now raise large crops of
barley ; most of them have become inde-
pendent projarietors of palm groves, and
have paid off the claims of the usurers,
b}' Avhom they had formerly been reduced
almost to the condition of serfs.
Tiff/iirf, with its hundred and seventy
thousand palm-trees, is the natural capital
of the AVed Righ, and the oldest oasis
in this region. It lies below the under-
ground confluence of the "Wed Miya and
Igharghar, 230 feet above the sea, at the
eastern foot of a plateau rising several
hundred feet higher. Its form is that
of an oval enclosed b}"- a broad but now
dried-up ditch, beyond which it is pro-
tected by a mound from the ever- en-
croaching sands. Since the French
occupation in 1854 the population has
doubled, and many of the old earthen or
adobe houses have been replaced by dwell-
ings constructed with blocks of gypsum,
"vvith galleries and upper stories. Suburbs
have sprung up beyond the enclosures,
and its trade and industries have been
greatly developed. About 8 miles to the
south is the religious metropolis of Te-
massiii, containing the zawya of Tanicl/iaf^
a branch of the Ain-Mahdi confraternity,
but now enjoying more authority than
the mother-house, its influence being felt
as far as Senegal.
St\f, the most isolated of all the Al-
gerian oases, lies about 60 miles east of
Tugurt, on the route to Jerid. Here the Wed Suf, whose waters arc nowhere
visible on the surface, maintains a group of ten oases, with a hundred and eighty
Brar
55:
El K^our
k
I
T 'J CURT tag i
55
P°E . of.Gr
Oa.sis
12 5Iilcs.
'^^ED PJGH— TUGUET.
307
thousand palms, yielding dates of an excellent quality, besides other fruit-trees,
such as the orange, aj)ricot, fig, and in the shade, vegetables and tobacco. But like
most of the Saharian oases, these gardens belong not to the cidtivators, but to the
warlike nomads, who claim the larger share of the crops. Grouped under the
general name of Trud, and associated with the Rebaias, Ferjans, and other
marauders, these Arab pastors, who are said to have arrived in the district towards
the end of the fourteenth century, pitch their tents in the neighbourhood of the
oases, leaving the cultivation of the land entirely in the hands of the industrious
Adwans. i
El- Wed, the chief of the Suf oases, comprises a group of about one thousand
Pig. 135. — TuGiraT.
S&ale 1 : 60 rw,.
5" 54
t .» oT Ureenwicn
5-3G-
2,200 yards.
houses, and like others in the neighbourhood, is the seat of a religious confraternity,
which maintains commercial and friendly relations with all the brotherhoods of
North Africa. Guemar and Kicinin are also populous communities ; but most of
the inhabitants of Kwinin are nearly blind, from the action of the fine sand with
which the air is frequently charged. The Suf is the only part of the Sahara in
which recent marine shells, a huccinum and a halanus, have hitherto been found.
But most geologists are of opinion that these isolated shells arc not now in situ,
but have been brought from a distance by natural agencies.
Like the oases of the AVed Bigh, those of the Wed Jeddi belong also to the
808
NOETH-WEST AFEICA.
basin of the " inland sea," if this term can be any longer applied to tbe saline
depression of the Shott Melg-high. More than half of Southern Algeria draining
towards the Sahara, from the Jebel Amur to the Tunisian frontier, forms part of
this basin, the central reservoir of which is at present almost dry.
Laghwat MZAB.
The watercourse flowing from the rising village of Aflu, capital of the Amur
Fig. 136. — Laghtvat.
Scale 1 : 18,000.
550 yards.
highlanders, is joined near Tajemut by a stream fed by tributaries from the
southern Amur valleys, and passing near Aiii-Ma/idi, the religious centre of the
famous Tijaniya order, founded in the eighteenth century. But its prosperity was
ruined by the choice made of Laghwat by the French as the cajjital of the Saharian
LAGHWAT— MZAB. 309
regions in the province of Algeria. Already connected witli Algiers by a carriage
road, Laghwat (El-Aghwat) seems destined to become tbe starting-point of the
future railway projected in the direction of the Twat oasis. Although standing at
an altitude of 2,470 feet, it lies beyond the border ranges of the Algerian plateau,
from which it is separated by the A'alley of the Mzi, which a few miles farther
down takes the name of Jeddi. An irrigation canal derived from this stream
circulates through the oasis, winding away between two hills to the plains beyond.
On these hills are perched the houses of Laghwat, disposed in amphitheatrical
form along the slopes. Like those of other Berber towns, the inhabitants were
formerly grouped in two distinct quarters, according to their origin. In the public
assembly were equally represented the Ulad-Serghins of the west, the eastern
Ahlafs, and the southern Ulad-el-Haj-Aissa, or "Sons of the Pilgrim Aissa." One
of the present Laghwat confraternities belongs to the famous Seniisiya brotherhood.
The fifteen thousand j)alms of Laghwat, which yield dates of indifferent quality,
occupy a part of the oasis, the rest of the land being planted with European
fruits, such as peaches, pears, apricots, figs, pomegranates, and vegetables,
especially onions, besides some olive, lemon, and orange trees. These varied
products are largely exported by caravans, mostly under the escort of members
of the Larbaa Arab confederacy, who are nearly all afiiliated to the Tijaniya
confraternity.
Below Laghwat the Jeddi traverses districts which in many cases might be
brought under cultivation. If properly irrigated, the rich alluvial soil in the
depressions, several hundred feet thick, would yield abundant crops. After
receiving the waters of the Demmed, flowing from the mountain gorges near the
picturesque hamlets of Messdd and Beinmed, belonging to the Ulad-Xail tribe, the
Jeddi continues its intermittent course across an extensive steppe region frequented
b}- nomad pastors. The oases, properly so-called, reappear in its lower valley
south of the Zab Dahri. Here the most populous settlement is that of the L^lad-
Jellals, which comprises no less than fourteen hundred houses, each surromided by its
palms and garden-plot, and possessing its own well sunk to the underground
reservoir. The Ulad- Jellals are separated by a feud of long standing from their
western neighbours, the inhabitants of the Sidi Khalcd oasis.
Ghardaya.
South of the sandy and steppe regions frequented by the Ulad-Nail, Larbaa,
Ilajej, and Harazlia tribes, the Beni-Mzab confederation occupies the eastern
slopes of the cretaceous plateaux traversed by the Wed Mzab and other
surface and underground streams, which flow eastwards in the direction of the
AVed Miya. Lying nearly 120 miles south of the advanced French station of
Laghwat, the religious and trading Mzabite republic endeavoured long to maintain
its political independence ; but it was fain, in 18-30, to recognise the suzerainty
of France. Its capital, Ghardaya, was seized seven years afterwards by a Frcncli
310 NORTH-WEST APEICA.
detachment ; lastlv, in 18S2, its annexation was formally proclaimed, a fort erected
above Ghardava receiving the small garrison which was here stationed to represent
the new Government.
The ^Izabites.
Although of undoubted Berber descent, and speaking the language of the
Kabvles and Tuaregs, the Mzabites are allied in dogma and rites with the
Wahabites of Arabia. Like these, they trace the origin of their sect to the
teachings of Abd-Allah ben Ibadh, who flourished towards the close of the seventh
century. The Ibadhite doctrines were diffused throughout Oman and other parts
of Arabia, and thence reached Irak, Khorassan, Turkestan, and India ; but they
became extinct everywhere in Asia, except in the Arabian peninsula, where they
were re%'ivcd imder a new form by the modern reformer, Wahab. In Africa the
Ibadhite propaganda produced more lasting results, but only amongst the Berbers,
the iXefusa highlanders in Tripolitana, the Tunisian Jarabas, and the Beni-Mzab
of Algeria. Fundamentally the Ibadhite teachings represent an older religious
evolution than those of the other Mohammedan sects, and in opposition to them
allows some scope for the action of free will. Frequently persecuted for their
theories and practices, the Mzabites have become " the most reticent of men," so
that it is difficult to obtain from them any information regarding their doctrines.
By dint of much perseverance and tact, M. Masqueray has, nevertheless, succeeded
in getting possession of all their religious writings and historic records, and many
of these valuable Arab manuscripts have already been published.
Oppressed by the true believers, the Mzabites have been often compelled to
shift from place to place. Forming a branch of the Zenata Berbers, they had
founded Tiaret on the upland plateau, about the middle of the eighth century, and
for nearly two hundred years they held their ground in this region of northern
^lauritania. Vanquished by the Sanhejas, they were thence driven to take refuge
in tho Sahara, where they occupied the Ziban, "Wed High, andSuf districts, sinking
wells and with patient industry bringing much land under cultivation. But they
were again compelled to quit their new homes, and withdraw to the cirques and
higher mountain gorges about the headstreams of the Maya.
With every exodus their numbers were reduced, but the survivors became
banded all the more closely together, displaying an ever-increasing zeal in the
observance of their religious practices and national usages. Their tolbas, at once
judges, priests, and censors of the public morals, armed also with the powers of
absolution, purification, and anathema, constitute a time priesthood, in which
Masqueray recognises the hierarchy of the Roman Church — possibly a remnant of
the religion professed by the Berbers before the spread of Islam. But beneath this
Christian element traces are said to be detected of a still older worship, that of the
goddess Thanit, " Mother of the Rain."
Most of the Mzabites are clearly Berbers, as shown in their small stature, well-
knit frames, broad and even flat features, thick lips, high forehead, deep-set eyes,
THE MZABITES.
311
and busily eyebrows. Besides many Negroes, still \'irtually slaves, some four
hundred Jews dwell amongst them, but cannot bold any land in the oasis. Naturally
of a peaceful disposition, the Mzabites have allied themselves with some Arab clans,
who pitch their tents near the settlements, and who in former times served as
mercenaries. Amongst these Arabs are some descendants of the old occupiers of
the land, a few even still possessing gardens and houses in the oasis.
Before the annexation, each Mzab village formed a small independent republic,
administered by an assembly which was chosen from the heads of families v^-ith. a
stake in the community. On important occasions a general assembly, formed
by delegates from the different urban bodies, consulted for the common interests
Fig. 137. — Mzab.
Scale 1 : 1,100,000.
G u e r*r a r a i^'^'^.S
>
jV'^
£#^.
52'
20'
t, , 6r. oreenwicn
A'Al
SOilUes.
of the confederacy. Quarrels often broke out amongst the various factions, and, as
at Ghadames, the combatants fought with the heavy iron or wooden keys of their
doors, always worn at the girdle. The head of the family is absolute master, the
children being incapable of holding any property without his sanction. The women,
who nearly always marry in their native place, are not permitted to emigrate ; but
they are well protected from insult, any one accosting them in public being banished
for the offence. They are chiefly occupied with weaving, entirely a house industry,
while the men do all the field and garden work.
According to the census of 1896, the whole group of oases comprise about
320,000 palms, with a population of over fifty thousand. Nearly all are owners
312 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
of a small plot, so that there arc no mendicants in the confederation. Those
r^-v.-v
■ - -A*
7)
„ 15'iV
^^ "i^'J
jt|/;-
^ 'MAI ■^ i>
S^te.D,
mMMi
|f:;;.fliF^'i'.h'u
..-■ I:*!,! '■
reduced to want arc supported by their respective communities. But however
THE MZABITES.
313
well cultivated, tlie land is insufficient for the needs of all the inhabitants, about
one-third of whom reside abroad, chiefly in Algiers, Tunis, and other coast towns.
The emigrants leave their families in the commune, recognising as their own all
children bom during their absence, however long they may be from home. On
the other hand, most of them set up temporary establishments in the towns where
Fig. 139.— MzAB AND Metleli.
Scale 1 : 250,000.
/ Jf^ GHAROAf
/^ Shebka Forfc
I E;>t of Greetiwich . 5° 50
C Miles.
they are settled, and on their return get themselves purified by the priests from the
stains contracted during their residence amongst the ungodlj% The absentees are
still liable to pay the yearly tax, and in this way are said to contribute at the rate
of more than one-third towards the expenditure of the mother- country. Owing to
their residence in North Algeria, most of them speak French and Arabic as well as
AFRICA I. y
314 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
their local Berber dialect ; they are also otherwise relatively well instructed, all
being able at least to read and write.
Five of the seven Mzabite towns are grouped in an elongated cirque, which is
traversed for a distance of 1 1 miles by the "Wed Mzab, in the direction from north-
west to south-east. Ghnrdayn [Taghardcik) , the capital, covers the slopes of an
eminence, which is cro^^-ned by a mosque with a minaret resembling an obelisk. It
is divided into three distinct quarters, each with its separate interests, and all
jointly comprising a fourth of the whole population.
The fort of Shehl:o, erected to the south of Ghardaya, overawes this place as well
as the two neighbouring towns of Melika and Beni-Isguen. Melika the " Royal,"
lying east of Ghardaya, was formerly the holy city of the Mzabites, and in the
vaults of its mosque were deposited the treasures of the confederation. Beni-
Isguen situated a little south of Melika, ranks second for population, and is also
the best built, the most commercial, and wealthiest place in the oasis. In the
extreme east of the cirque lies El-Attef, the first place founded in the district by
the Mzabites.
GUERARA — MeTLILI.
Near it is Bu-Mura, while Berrian and Guerara, completing the HeptapoHs, lie
beyond the cirque, and even outside the Wed Mzab basin. Berrian, on the route
from Laghwat to Ghardaya, occupies a small valley, watered by an affluent of the
"Wed Usa, which feeds some thirty-five thousand palms. Guerar (El-Guerara),
with still more extensive palm groves, lies over 50 miles north-east of Ghardaya on
another tributary of the Wed Usa.
The town of MetUIi, 20 miles south of the capital, on the route to El-Golea,
forms no part of the Mzabite confederacy. Its oasis is held by a branch of the
nomad Shaanba tribe, which affords protection to the peasantry while appro-
priating the largest share of their labour. The Asckpias gigantea, one of the
characteristic plants of the Sudan, flourishes in the Metlili Yalley, which also grows
enormous cucumbers, about a yard in length.
Wargla.
The Wargla oasis, which lies along the course of the Wed Miya, above the
underground confluence of the Mzab affluents, alone possesses more palms than the
whole grouj) of Mzabite settlements. The town is surrounded by a dense forest of
some six hundred thousand plants stretching in a vast semicircle beyond the swampy
tracts to the south-east. Wargla, which was formerly far more populous than at pre-
sent, comprises within the ramparts a number of separate quarters occupied by the
Beni-Sissin, Beni-Waggin, and Beni-Brahim communities, all half-caste Berbers
and Negroes of dark complexion. The well-cultivated oasis of Nguca, situated
further north on the route to Tugurt, is peopled by the Ilaratins, also a dark-
THE ^:ED MAYA.
315
coloured Berber com m unity, who, notwithstanding their fewer numbers, have often
contended for the supremacy with their more powerful neighbours,
A zone of artesian wells, analogous to that of the "Wed Eigh, occupies the
depressions in Wargla and the surrounding oases. The total supply, of about
35 cubic feet per second, has been greatly increased by numerous fresh borings
Fig. 140.— Waegia.
Scale 1 : 150,000.
521
pu tfend
^
5£-
iW
tttt\:.;
■•5:^^^^:Si
5'9
3 Miles.
since 1882. Till recently the wells were " dying" at the rate of one every year,
each representing a loss of from fifteen hundred to two thousand palms.
The Wed Maya.
Beyond "Wargla and ^guca a few palm thickets are scattered over the hollows
of the "Wed Maya. But the whole population is as nothing to what it must have
been at a time when the ruins occurring at so many points were flourishing to-^Tis,
surrounded by cidtivated lands. Towards the north, the plain of El-Hajira, about
midway between Wargla and Tugurt, was covered with villages, while the town of
Bagdad stood on the margin of a now dried-up shott. The most remarkable place
in the district was Sedrata {Cedrata, Ceddrata), which has been somewhat too
grandiloquently called the " Saharian Pompeii." Under the dunes rolling away
316 NORTH-WEST AFEICA.
to the south-west of Wargla are still discovered its houses, with their sculptures,
wood carviu<TS, ornaments of all sorts, even their very wells. According to the
local tradition, the epoch of the Arab invasion coincided with the abandonment of
this citv, which, to judge from its buildings, was evidently a Berber settlement,
and is still claimed as their property by the Mzabites. But vestiges even of an
older period are also numerous at the foot of the plateaux. Along the edge of the
cscarjiments skirting the Wed Maya are seen villages of the Stone Age, with work-
shops of chipped flint implements, and many other objects bearing witness to the
gelations maintained between the Saharians of that epoch and the populations
dwelling on the shores of the Indian Ocean.
2sot far from Sedrata rises the old natural stronghold of KJirima, which might
have served as a refuge for the Ibadhites when driven from "VYargla. From this
citadel they may have again retreated towards the valley of the "Wed Mzab, whence
their present appellation of Mzabites. According to an Arabic manuscript, com-
municated to M. Terry by a descendant of the old sultans of the country, as many
as 125 towns existed in the thirteenth century in a region where are now found
two only, Wargla and Isrgu9a.
El-Golea — Geryville.
Although lying south of the 32nd parallel and five degrees of latitude from
ihe Mediterranean seaboard, "Wargla is not the most advanced French station in
this direction. El-Golea, over 540 miles nearly due south of Algiers by the
Laghwat-Mzab route, was first visited in 1859 by Duveyrier, who was here insulted
and threatened with death. In 1873 a French column penetrated to this place,
which, although no longer held by a French garrison, recognises by a tribute the
authority of the Algerian Government.
El-Golea lies beyond the basin of the Wed Maya, and from the mound crowned
by its castle is visible the dried-up bed of the Wed Seggwer, which is followed by
caravans proceeding to Twat and Timbuktu. A little to the west begins a zone of
large dunes, which correspond to the eastern aregs between Ghadames and the
Ighargar basin. The gardens of the oasis, comprising about sixteen thousand palms,
occupy the edge of this zone, and are watered by wells and. /b^a/r/As, or \mderground
channels. But the sands arc constantly threatening the cultivated tracts, whose
Berber inhabitants arc mere serfs in the hands of the nomad Shaanba-Mvvadhi,
and of the Ulad Sidi-esh-Sheikh marabuts.
Wargla, El-Golea, and Metlili are the three towns round which gravitate the
Shaanba (Shaamba, Shamba) pastoral tribes, who own houses and gardens in these
places, and never fail to pay them two yearly visits during the shearing and date-
harvest seasons. AVhilc the bulk of the clan roam over the steppe with their
flocks, a few remain in the oases to look after the tribal interests. Thus the
Shaixnbas enjoy at once the produce both of their live stock and of their gardens.
They also engage in trade, and act as carriers and escorts to the Mzabite mer-
EL-GOLEA— GEEYMXLE.
317
chants. They eren occupy themselves with some industries, such as weaving and
embroidery, carried on by the women in their tents. Lastly, they have few rivals
as marauders. One of their clans are the Hab-er-Rih, or "Breath of the Wind," and,
after they have carried off any booty, to the victims of the razzia it is said, " Go,
seek the wind." The Shaanbas will make a journey of six hundred miles across the
wilderness merely to avenge an insult, carrjdng off whole herds from their enemies,
the Saharian Tuaregs. Although of Berber origin, they now speak Arabic exclu-
sively, and pay the reKgious tax regularly to the TJlad Sidi-esh-Sheikh.
In Orania, or Western Algeria, the French have advanced far less southward^
than in the provinces of Constantino and Algiers. West of the Jebel Amur and
Fig. 141.— El-Golea.
Scale 1 : 4,700.
■^s^tt:^
/ /
Marabout pf ^ttif- ^^'^
''m
2° 52' 50-
.5° 53' E . o"f Greenwich
110 Yards.
of the military route, which runs from Teniet-el-Haad through the rising town of
Shellala to Aflu, the chief station is the important strategic town of Gerf/ville,
formerly El-Biod, which stands at an altitude of 4,100 feet, in a rich mineral
district nine miles west of the native town of Stitten. Numerous megalithic
remains are scattered over the surrounding heights.
Geryville has not prospered so much as some other towns less conveniently
situated on the plateau, but more favoured by the new railway running south of
Saida in the direction of the alfa region. This line terminates at present at
Mesheria, but it is to be continued southwards in the direction of one of the
numerous breaches in the southern ranges leading to the Sahara.
818
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
Of these openings the most important is Ain-Sefra, or the "Yellow Spring,"
which, although 8,570 feet high, already lies on the Saharian slope. Its oasis
is watered by a perennial stream, flowing in the direction of the Wed Namus, or
" Mosquito River." East of Ain-Sefra, which is the health resort for the troops of
South Orania, the somewhat less elevated settlement of Tiut is surrounded by palm
groves and orchards. On a neighbouring rock are seen some rude representations
of men armed with bows and arrows, women, and animals, including an elephant,
Fig. 142.— The Ain-Sefea Highlands.
Scale 1 : 600,000.
O^-'
V/p't flr "br-penwlch
0°io'
12 Miles.
engraved perhaps at a time when these pachyderms may have still survived in the
district. Similar rock-carvings also occur near the Mogher Tahteni oases, on the
upper course of the AVed Xamus,
All the settlements in this region form so many petty republics, administered
by tlic local assemblies, but recognising the political suzerainty of the Hamian
(Jliarba Arabs. Tliose lying farther cast, in the direction of Geryville — Asia,
Shellalar Dehrani, Shellala Guebli, Lu Semghum, Upper and Lower Arba — also
recognise the authority of an Arab tribe, the powerful Ulad Sidi-esh-Sheikh family,
SOCIAL CONDITION OF ALGERIA. 319
wticli claims descent from the first caliph, Abu Bekr. The haughty members of
this tribe are all marabuts, and held in high estimation by the surroimding popu-
lations, who are fond of claiming kinship with them. They trace their origin to a
saint who lived in the seventeenth century, and whose tomb is shown on the
Saharian slope south of Arba. This shrine, surrounded by five villages, is held in
great veneration, and was formerly a great centre of sedition and fanaticism. In
1881 it was razed to the ground, but afterwards rebuilt, the policy of the French
Government being to control the tribes through the great feudal chiefs. The
whole region of the Sahara, from the Marocco frontier to Tripolitana, has already
been placed under the absolute authority of the chief of the powerful Sidi Sheikh
oonfederacy. Breznia, on the Wed Seggwer, is the chief granary of the tribe.
Social Condition of Algeria.
In spite of the omissions and contradictions of the official returns, a general
Increase of population in Algeria has been placed beyond all doubt. Before the first
summary census it was usually estimated at about three millions, although an
approximate return in 1851 gave scarcely more than two and a half millions. In
1872, after the terrible famine, which had at least decimated the population, the
total scarcely exceeded two millions four hundred thousand. But since that period
the two successive censuses of 1891 and 1896 have shown a rapid annual increase
of one hundred thousand a year, a rate much higher than that of France. In 1896
the Algerians numbered nearly four and a half millions, and should this rate of
progress continue, they will exceed five millions before the end of the century.
In the returns, the native element is not distinguished according to its Arab or
Berber origin. Hence it may be possible, as some assert, that the Arab race is
really diminishing, and the Berber increasing. In the towns of Algiers, Constan-
tine, and Oran the mortality is considerably in excess of the births among the
Moors, who are chiefly Arabs. But in the rural districts, where the Berber
element prevails, the births greatly exceed the deaths. Hence it is evident that
the so-called " indigenous " population will long maintain its numerical supe-
riority, although not augmenting so rapidly as the foreign settlers, except in the
Kabyle districts.
In 1896 the Arabs and Berbers appear to have been five times more numerous
than the European immigrants, the Berbers alone representing probably one-half
of the total population. They also receive some increase through immigration, the
labourers from Marocco being for the most part of Kabyle or Shellala race. By
crossing with the natives, the Negroes also contribute to strengthen the Berber
element, for they are settled chiefly amongst the Ruaghas of the Saharian districts.
But since the suppression of the slave trade the blacks are diminishing in Algeria,
partly through absorption, partly through excess of mortality.
Since the conquest the Europeans have augmented according to a regular rate
of accelerated progression. Beginning with a yearly increase of a few hundreds.
320
NORTH-WEST .^J^EICA.
it o-radually rose to some thousands, and may now be estimated at over ten thousand.
For the first twenty-five years of the occupation the increase was due exclusively
to inimi oration, for at that time the mortality, o-s^-ing to various causes, was much
hio-her than the births. But the race has now struck root, so to say, in Algerian
soil, and the theory denying the possibility of acclimatisation has been negatived
bv the results. European marriages are both more frequent and more fruitful than
in the mother coimtry, and of the present annual increase about one-fifth is due to
excess of births over deaths.
, In the European colony the French have a numerical superiority over all
others since the year 1851, although the difference is slight, regard being had to
Fiff- 143. — Geowth of the Eueopeax Population' in Algeeia since 1830.
ireDooQ
their preponderating political influence. The Maltese, who during the first years
of the occupation arrived in large numbers, as camp sutlers, petty dealers, and
gardeners, are now scarcely seen in the country. But their place has been taken
by Culabrians and other Italians, who come in ever-increasing nimibers, seeking
employment as builders and navvies. Still more numerous are the Spanish settlers,
who comprise at present about one-fourth of all the Europeans residing in Algeria,
while in the province of Oran they are in the majority. But even here all the
European elements show a general tendency to assimilate with the preponderating
French population. The advantages of naturalisation arc so great that many
H
-si
H
o
o
Pi
H
P5
-<!
C?
CO
CO
CO
Ed
P5
SOCIAT^ CONDITION OF ALGERIA. 321
naturally seek to become French citizens. Large nnmbers of Italians, Spaniards,
and Germans have thus already changed their nationality ; while the immigrants
from Alsace-Lorraine, officially returned as Grermans, claim their right to the title
of Frenchmen.
The Algerian Jews, descended for the most part from Andalusian exiles, were
all naturalised in 1870, to the great disgust of the Arab and Berber Mussulmans,
who could not imderstand why this honour should be conferred on such a despised
race, while the children of the soil were treated as a subject people. But
although now nominally " French," most of the native Jews are still regarded a^
forming a distinct nationality. At the same time a slow process of assimilation in
dress, usages, speech, and ideas is evidently going on, in this respect the second
generation of Jewish settlers showing a marked advance.
On the other hand, the Arab Mussulmans could claim naturalisation only under
exceptional circumstances, and on the condition of abandoning the precepts of the
Koran. So merged is their law with their religion, that the mere application for
French citizenship is looked upon by their fellow-countrymen as a sort of apostacy.
But this is not the case with the Kabyles, who have never conformed their juris-
prudence witji the teachings of Islam. Hence whole tribes of Berbers have already
applied for naturalisation, and but for certain administrative formalities and the
opposition of many functionaries, the half-million inhabitants of Kabylia would
gladly ask for incorporation in French society.
One of the chief causes of the rapid assimilation of the various European
elements is the adoption of French as the common language of intercourse. Those
who can already speak it more or less fluently may be estimated at over a million.
Till recently the so-called Sabir served as a sort of lingua franca amongst the various
inhabitants of the co'intry. But this was altogether a formless jargon of a rudi-
mentary character, composed of about two himdred words, verbs in the infinitive,
nouns, adjectives, or adverbs, used without inflexions and somewhat incoherently,
the sense being eked out by a lively display of pantomime and facial expression.
Half of the words were Arabic, a fourth French or Provencal, the rest Spanish,
Italian, or Maltese ; but it is everywhere disappearing under the combined influences
of commercial intercourse and the Franco- Arab schools.
A certain national uniformity is also promoted by mixed marriages, although
such unions are still rare between the Europeans and the natives. Their offspring
are seldom admitted into French society ; yet it is impossible any longer to over-
look the presence of these half-castes, who remain nominal Arabs, but who become
Franco- Arab in speech and usages. To this class belong the so-called "Beni-
Ramasses," people of all professions, known in the Algerian jargon as Ulad-Blaca,
or " Children of the Piazza," because their homes are mainly the open spaces in
the towns.
Forests — Agriculture.
Of the vast but still scantily peopled productive lands in Algeria, only a very
small portion has hitherto been turned to any account. Most of the occupied
822
NOETH-WEST AFEICA.
districts are either grazing grounds left in a state of nature, or subjected to a
rudiracntar}' system of tillage. Even in the Tell vast tracts are absolutely barren,
while on the plateaux argillaceous or saline wastes cover boundless spaces. Most
of the now treeless northern parts might, however, be clothed with a forest vegeta-
tion, and thus play an important part in modifying the climate and developing
the economic conditions of the land.
According to the official returns, of the 35,000,000 acres representing the
surface of the Tell, over 7,500,000 are under forests. The intermediate region
pf the plateaux and shotts, with the approaches to the Sahara, comprise a further
wooded area of 270,000 acres, at least if public documents issued in 1896 can be
trusted. But most of these so-called "forests," or "woods," are mere tliickets and
Fig. 144.— Teniet-el-Haad and its Foeests.
Scale 1 : 300.000.
6 Miles.
scrub, and in some places little more than open spaces dotted over here and there
with a few clumps of stunted shrubs. The 7,500,000 acres of forest placed, in 1896,
under Government agents yielded only £157,000, or little more than fivepence per
acre. The only well-preserved woods are those of East Algeria, of some parts of
K!ibylia,andof Tcniet-el-Haad in the uplands stretching eastof theTVarscnis district.
These woods, consisting chiefly of cedars, cover a space of 7,500 acres, at altitudes
varying from 4,000 to 5,600 feet. In general, forest-trees may be said to diminish
from east to west, in the same proportion as the rainfall. In the province of Con-
stantino they are still numerous, and in that of Algiers already thinly scattered,
while in Orania they have almost disappeared.
The chief agent in the destruction of the woodlands is fire. In order to enlarge
FOEESTS— AGEICULTUEE. 323
their pastures, sometimes also to protect themselves from the wild beasts, the Arab
shepherds fire the dry herbage without taking the necessary precautions to limit
the action of the flames. Hence, when the -uind blows, the woods are kindled,
and the conflagration spreads far and wide. In the month of August, 1865, a vast
sheet of flame, fomented by the sirocco, consumed in five days most of the forest
zone stretching for a breadth of from 25 to 50 miles over the Bona uplands. A
space of over 250,000 acres was laid waste on this occasion. In 1881 the forests
about Bougie were similarly ravaged, and in 1885 Orania lost the finest remains of
its old forests. To prevent the recurrence of such disasters the severe measure hap
been taken to hold the whole tribe responsible in whose district fires break out,
and confiscate their lands. But this barbarous process is useless to prevent the
evil, because the real culprit generally belongs to a different community from that
where the fire breaks out. A more efficacious remedy will be found in the syste-
matic efforts now being made to replant the wasted lands. By the plans ela-
borated by the Government in 1885, several tracts, comprising altogether about
270,000 acres, will soon again be clothed with timber at an outlay of under
£700,000.
The new settlers also find themselves obliged to plant as well as sow. Every
village and hamlet has now its climip of trees, and on the plains the farmsteads are
indicated at a distance by clusters of eucah^tus and other large trees. Many
Algerian villages already possess avenues as fine as those of the towns in the
mother country. In some places these plantations are necessary to dry up the
fever-breathing swamps and render the district inhabitable. Thus Bufarik, where
" the atmosphere poisoned the very birds of passage," has been rendered healthy,
and the whole of the Mitija Valley covered with gardens and orchards. Nursery-
grounds have been established at intervals along the railway routes and about the
stations, and in 1884 as many as 470,000 trees were counted on the Algiers-Oran
line. Of the exotics introduced by Europeans, the most widespread is the eucalj'ptus,
of which over a hundred varieties have made their appearance since the first speci-
men was planted at Hamma in 18G1. In the Garden of Acclimatisation at Algiers
as many as 4,500 foreign species are now flourishing.
'No other Mediterranean region is more suited for the production of olive-oi'l ;
but, except in Kabylia and some parts of the province of Constantine, the olive
groves are neglected, and j-ield only an indifferent oil, used in Marseilles in the
preparation of soap. The table oils consimaed in Algeria are nearly all imported
from France. On the eastern plateaux, and even in the vallej's of the Jebel Aures,
where the remains have been foimd of so many Roman oil-presses, nothing is now
seen beyond a few clusters of olive-trees, which, however, yield, with those of the
Bougie district, the most highly esteemed oil in the whole of North Africa.
In the northern regions the most widely diffused fruit-tree is the fig, which
thrives well in stony places, and which in Kabylia is almost as useful as is the date
on the verge of the desert. But here a still more useful plant is the cork-tree, the
bark of which, although less prized than that of Catalonia, forms an important
article of export. If properly administered, the cork forests of Algeria should yield
824 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
«
an annual income of about £600,000, wliicli is about four times more than the
present revenue derived from this source.
In the Algerian Sahara the date-palm forms the great resource of the inhabi-
tants. But for this wonderful plant, which yields them half their nutriment and
enables them to procure the other half, the Saharian populations could not exist in
this sand-encircled region. Every tree is tended like a member of the family :
watered, cleansed, regarded as a being endowed with soul and sentiment, showing
its gratitude for fostering care by an abundant crop of fruit, its anger at neglect
t)y a scanty harvest. " When a li^-ing palm is felled," says the legend, " it cries
like a child, and its murderers are moved to pity." Till recently throughout all
Mussulman lands, as still in Marocco, international right, which tolerated homicide,
never allowed a palm to be touched. In southern Algeria the palm groves
comprise altogether about three million plants, yielding a revenue of considerably
over £2,000,000. In some of the oases, and especially in the Mzab Valley, a
single plant is sometimes valued as high as £32.
As in the Roma]i period, the chief crops in the Tell are still cereals, such as
hard wheat, barley, beshna or millet, maize, and, since the French occupation, rye,
oats, and soft wheat. In good seasons the yield suffices for the supply of men and
animals, leaving some barley, oats, and hard wheat for exportation. In ordinary
years the cereals represent one-fifth of all the exports from Algeria. The gardens
along the seaboard also forward considerable quantities of oranges, lemons,
bananas, and other fruits ; and this trade in fruit, which might be greatly
developed, already supports a large commercial movement with the mother comitry.
Of economic plants, tobacco is much favoured by the new settlers, although
many planters have in recent years exchanged it for viniculture. Cotton also
came into favour during the American war, but is now seen only in a few districts
of the Tell and in the "Wed Righ, where some Sudanese varieties are grown, whose
fibre resembles that of the United States " long silk."
Alfa and Viniculture — Stock Farming.
Far more important than all these cultivated plants is the alfa, or halfa, grass,
wluch grows wild on the plateaux, and of which a financial company has acquired
the monopoly over a space of some 750,000 acres south of Saida. The fibre of the
alfa, which yields a yearly revenue of from £600,000 to £800,000, is employed
chiefly in the manufacture of paper. The esparto grass of the Spanish province of
!Murcia having become almost completely exhausted, the English dealers, who are
the chief purchasers of these fibres, turned their attention to the Algerian alfa.
Since the first cargo shipped at the port of Oran in 1862, the trade has acquired
an enormous development throughout the plateaux. But extensive tracts have
already been exhausted, and specidators have now begun to replace the alfa by
the dis, another fibrous plant long employed by the Arabs for making canvas
sacks and cordajje.
THE EUEOPEAN SETTLEES. 325
In recent years the vine has chiefly engaged the attention of the peasantry.
Vineyards have been laid out throughout the Tell and even on the upland plateaux,
and this industry has even been taken in hand by the Mohammedans, notwith-
standing the precepts of the Koran. In 1896 the vintage exceeded sixty-eight
million gallons, so that after the great wine-growing countries, such as France,
Spain, Italy, and Hungary, Algeria ranks amongst those in which viniculture has
acquired the greatest development. Some of the vintages, amongst others those of
Miliana, are highly esteemed, and even in the last century Shaw compared
the flavour of the wine grown in the Algiers district to that of Hermitage. Large
companies have been formed to clear the land and create ■vineyards many thousand
acres in extent. But alarm has been caused bj^ the appearance of phylloxera, in
1885, at ISlansura, near Tlemcen, and afterwards in the Sidi-bel- Abbes district.
A more formidable scourge of long standing are the locusts, which are hatched
in countless myriads on the steppes, where they are salted down and consumed as
food by the nomads. A flight of moderate size observed in the Medea district in
1874, formed a compact mass 15 by 2| miles, or 40 square miles in extent,
comprising at least fifty billions of these winged pests. The invasion of 1866,
which caused a direct loss of about £2,000,000, was followed next year by a
frightful famine, during which probably five hundred thousand natives perished of
hunger and want. Since then successful attempts have been made to locaKse the e\-il
by means of metallic plates disposed in such a way as to present an effective barrier to
the advance of the migratory species {acridium ynigratoriiim). The winged variety
does little harm, being mostly blown seawards, as happened in 1865, when the dead
bodies washed ashore lined the beach to a depth of from 10 to 12 feet.
Of domestic animals, the most noteworthy is the famous Barbary horse, bred in
the nomad encampments on the upland plateaux. According to the census of
1896, about five-sixths of the Algerian horses were still owned by the natives, who
possess even a larger share of the mules and asses, and almost all the camels. To
the Arabs further belong most of the homed cattle, sheep, and goats ; and Tiaret,
the chief market for live stock in Algeria, lies in Arab territory. On the other
hand, nearly all the swine are owned by the European settlers, although some of the
Kabyles breed this animal, regarded as " impure " by all true believers. The Kve
stock was greatly reduced by the scarcity of fodder in 1882, when the Arabs lost
over a million of animals.
The Eukopean Settleks.
Like most other European colonies, Algeria can scarcely be said to have any
peasant class, properly so called. The European rural population, which represents
about half of the immigrants, is mainly of urban origin ; hence is produced a
phenomenon the very reverse of what is observed in France. In the mother
country the to-vvns are inhabited by people from the country ; in Algeria the
country is settled by townsfolk. Eelatively speaking, the Algerian farms are
326
NORTn-A\'EST AFEICA.
better stocked than those of France, and in many places even the natives possess
improved ploughs.
The French are naturally the most numerous element in the rural districts.
After the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, over one thousand expatriated families were
provided with land, thanks to the contributions raised by the " ladies of France,"
and fiftv-six villages were founded or enlarged for their reception. Most of these
concessions, however, have already changed hands. The settlers become pro- •
prietors only on condition of residing five years on the plot assigned them by the
Fig. 145. — A Geeat Algeeian Doxaht.
Scale 1 : 600,000.
6° -t-o'
L . d\ bfeenwrcH
7°,0'
Domain of the Algerian Company.
12 Miles.
State. But during the decade which follows the distribution of land to the
colonists, about half of them sell their share to others.
There still remain to be appropriated vast tracts, which belong to the Govern-
ment under various titles, one of which, unfortunately, is that of sequestration pro-
nounced against the tribes. But the process of concession hitherto adopted not
only burdens the finances with a considerable yearly outlay, but also generally
proves more expensive to the colonists than if the concession had been purchased
INDUSTRIES— TEADE. 327
at a fair valuation. Xor can this method of colonisation fail to be afPected by the
taint of official favouritism. In such cases personal recommendations are all-
powerful, for the concessions can never be claimed as a right, and always retain
the character of a favour. The concessions generally range from fifty to seventy-
five acres, far too much to be properly tilled by one settler ; hence the land is, to a
large extent, cultivated by the aid of native hands. The same evil prevails amongst
the Arab proprietors, who employ as day labom-ers the wretched khamnies, or
" tenants at fifth hand."
The direct purchase of State lands is of rare occurrence ; but a general move-
ment of exchanges is going on, tending to enlarge the estates of the settlers at the
expense of the natives, whose ignorance often places them at the mercy of
unscrupulous speculators. Men skilled in legal quibbles take advantage of their
superior knowledge to get unfair possession of the territory of whole tribes. To
prevent these and other abuses, arising out of the uncertainty of titles, it would be
desirable to accurately survey the Arab lands, determine the limits of each holding,
and secure its full possession to the occupant. Such a survey was begun in 1873 ;
but at the end of 1884 only 1 ,750,000 acres, or about a twentieth part of the Tell,
had been dealt with — a rate of progress which would require two centuries to com-
plete the work. The delay appears to be caused by the influence of a large section
of Algerian society, which has a direct interest in leaving questions of proprietor-
ship and titles in a general state of muddle.
Industries — Trade.
European industry is limited in Algiers to the supply of a few local wants, while
that of the natives has been paralysed by the introduction of foreign wares. There
is an almost total absence of mineral coal, and the reserves of wood and other fuel
require to be managed with the greatest economy, while the apparatus introduced
to utilise solar heat have hitherto yielded no results of any consequence. Hence it
is not likely that Algeria can ever become a great manufacturing country. Its
hides, wool, and other animal products sujjply the workshops of Marseilles ; aKa finds
its way to England to be converted into paper ; cork is utilised in the French wine
trade ; the Beni-Safi and Ain-Mokhra mineral ores are exported to the foundries of
Europe and the New World ; the salines on the coast cannot compete with those of
France, while the vast salt deposits in the shotts of the plateaux are used only by
the surrounding tribes. The mineral and thermal springs, which are scattered
abimdantly over the whole region, offer efficacious remedies for the most diverse
maladies, but hitherto a few only have been frequented by European invalids.
The annual movement of trade between Algeria and other countries, France
included, already exceeds £21,000,000. Since the year of the conquest, the mean
price of its produce has increased threefold, and its exchanges nearly a himdred-
fold. But the imports have always exceeded the exports, and this relation must
continue as long as Algeria is occupied by a large army supplied from the mother
828
NORTH-WEST AFEICA.
country, and tlie colonists take months and years to pay for tlieir European wares
by the products of their plantations. At the same time, the relative increase in the
exports keeps pace with that of the imports, and Algeria already takes the eighth
place in the extent of its commerce with France. The ports of Bona, Philippe-
yille, Bougie, .cUgiers, Arzcu, and Oran are amongst the most frequented in the
Western Mediterranean waters, and the annexation of Tunis has given a great
stimulus to the commercial movement with the interior. Some trade is also done ^
across the frontier with Marocco ; but it is mainly of a contraband character, and
abnost entirely in the hands of the Jews. But south of Wargla and Suf all inter-
course with the Saharian oases is for the present nearly suspended. Nevertheless,
after four years of total interruption, a caravan, comprising one thousand persons
and three thousand camels, proceeded in 1884 from the Ben-Khelil wells, in South
Fig. 146.— Theemal Speings.
Scale 1 : 9,500,000.
Sulphurous FeiTuginons Saline Waters. Various Waters.
Waters. Waters. H Thermal Waters.
180 Miles.
Crania, to the Gurara oases, returning in company with the Dui-Menias of
Marocco.
^Nearly all the trade of Algeria being sea-borne, na\'igation has necessarily
increased in the same proportion as the movement of exchanges. But steamers,
either independent or subsidised by the Government, have entirely replaced
sailing vessels, except in the fisheries and the coasting trade. The general move-
ment of navigation is represented by nearly eleven thousand ships of all sizes, with
a total tonnage of over 4,500,000. Of this France possesses about two-thirds,
thanks to the steamships plying regularly between the French and Algerian coasts.
Next to France come England, which exports most of the alfa, and Spain, which
has the advantage of position, but which mainly employs small craft.
A regular service of steamers is maintained between the Algerian seaports and
those of the Western Mediterranean basin. About thirty trips are made on the
average every month across the intervening waters ; but in tliis growing traffic
EOADS AND EAILWATS.
329
a very small part has hitherto been taken by Algeria itself. The land communi-
cations in the interior are also well developed, and in proportion to its population
Algeria has more carriage roads than France. The stranger visiting the outskirts
of Algiers and the other large towns, is surprised to find so many broad, well-kept
Fig. I-!?.— Geo\vth of the Foeeign Teade op Algesia since 1830.
highways on the African continent, and the mental comparison which he makes
mth many European countries is to the advantage of the French colony
EoADS AND Railways.
In 1830 the only roads in the regency were the tracks of shepherds and their
flocks, and the beaten paths of caravans along the streams and through the moun-
tain gorges. But during the first years of the French occupation, one of the chief
AFRICA I. c
880
NOETH-WEST AFEICA.
works of the armv was that of road-making, and Algeria may be said to liave been,
reduced far more by the construction of strategical routes than by force of arms.
Even still thousands of military convicts are employed on these works, jointly
■with Calabrian, native, and other navvies, yet the system of main highways has not
vet been completed. Between Timisia and Marocco a single route, running through
Suk-Ahras, Guclma, Setif, the !Mitija and Shelif valleys, and Tlemcen, serves to
connect the lateral roads branching off towards the interior, or northwards to the
coast. The coast route, intended to connect La Callc with Nemours, is still inter-
rupted by numerous gaps, representing over one-half of the whole distance.
Tig. US. — Lines of Steaji Navigation between Mauritania and the opposite Coast.
Scale 1 : 18,000,000.
Under one.
Weekly Departures in either direction.
One to foiir. Four to eight. Eight upwards.
— ISO Miles.
Several important communes also are still accessible only on foot or on horseback,
and the important town of Jijelli still remains completely isolated for want of any
carriage roads.
Hailway operations began in 1860, and the first section was opened in 1862.
At present thi; total development, exclusive of the single lines used for carr)4ng
alfa, is nearly 2,200 miles. But the great central artery, between Tunis and
Marocco, is not yet completed. Although the break occurring south of Kabylia,
between El-Ashir and Palestro, in the direction of Marocco, has now (1898) been
bridged over, the line still stops at Ain-Temushent, within 60 miles of the frontier.
EOADS AND EAILWAYS.
331
Several seaports, sucli as IS'cmours, Eeni-Saf, Mostaganem, Tenes, Sliershell, Dellys,
Bougie, Collo, and La Calle, still await the branches that are to connect them with
the trunk line. These, however, have all been either begun or at least projected.
All the companies have received Government aid by advances and concession of
land. Yet in certain places, especially between Algiers and Blida, and on the
Philippeville-Constantine section, the local traffic has already begun to yield ample
i returns on the capital originally invested. The tariff is everywhere very high,
sufficient interest on the outlay being guaranteed by the Government to render the
Fig. 149. — EoADS AND Railways of Algeeia.
Scale 1 : 9,500,000.
Railways.
Carriage Koad.
<_- ISO Miles.
companies independent of the public favour. Hence along all the lines ordinary
coaches are able to compete successfully with the locomotives.
South of the great central artery, three lines already penetrate to the plateaux
in the direction of the Sahara. One of these runs from Constantino to Batna, another
from Saida to Mesheria, and the third from Sidi-bel -Abbes to Ras-el-Ma. Thanks
to these new means of communication, colonisation may now be diffused throughout
the plateaux better than in the regions lying between Aumale and Laghwat.
The great continental line across the desert to the Niger, first proposed by
MacCarthy, will probably run from Algiers through Blida and the Upper Isser
Valley to the upland plateaux, and so on by Laghwat and the Wed Jeddi Valley to
the Sahara and Timbuktu. But several alternative projects have been suggested,
and several important expeditions have been undertaken to survey the ground.
332 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
Nevertheless tlie construction of a trans-Saharian line can hardly be seriously-
taken in hand until the great Algerian railways are farther advanced towards
completion. The Algerian system itself has to be farther developed in the direction
of Twat, which lies about midway between Algiers and Timbuktu. When the
almost unknown desert region beyond this point has been sufficiently surveyed,
the trans-Saharian line may be pushed forward in the direction of the Niger.
Other schemes have been advanced, which are intended to connect the Igharghar ■
Valley with the Tsad basin across Central Sahara.
Administration — Tribal Organisation.
The administration of Algeria, which is attached to the Ministry of the Interior,
is directed by a civil governor- general, commander in chief of the land and sea
forces, assisted by a director-general and a Government council. But the action of
this central power is brought to bear through different channels on the natives and
the European settlers. The latter enjoy the same rights as in France, whereas the
Arabs and Kabylcs are practically at the mercy of the administration.
The Arab tribal organisation is nearly always of an aristocratic character.
Comprising a group of families which believe themselves sprung of a common
stock, the clan recognises a chief at once military and religious. The dwar, or
encampment established on the steppe or near the arable lands, is the original unit,
out of which is developed the group of tribes. In each dwar the authority is
vested in the heads of families, and especially those who can boast of the noblest
birth. Several dwars, united in a ferka, are administered by a sheikh or " elder,"
or even a kaid, when the group is large enough to constitute a whole arsh, or
rija, that is, a number of persons which may var}' from five hundred to as many as
fifty thousand. The kaid is subordinate to an agha, and the latter to a bash-agha
or a khalifa, who are all so many absolute kinglets in their respective spheres,
uncontrolled by any elected body of advisers. Nevertheless, a certain democratic
spirit lias been fostered in the dwars, thanks to the jemaa, or assembly, constituted
by the heads of families, or by the kobars alone, that is, by the " grandees," con-
sulted by the sheikh of the ferka on all weighty matters. Very different is the
assembly of the Berber communes, in which the old customs are still respected.
Amongst them the whole people form the assembly, whose authority is limited only
by traditional usages.
In all Arab communities, questions of genealogy are of paramount importance.
At first the French governors adopted the policy of relying on the chiefs of the
warlike tribes, in order to secure the pacification of the country, neglecting no
devices to attract them by titles, honours, the grant of fiefs and domains. But
the aristocratic tastes and traditions of the Arab people have the fatal consequence
of engendering fierce rivalries in the struggle for power. Three distinct orders of
nobility contend for the ascendancy amongst the tribes : the jiKuh, or sons of
chiefs, who by right or usurpation claim to be s])rung from the companions of
SOCIAL CHANGES. 833
Mohammed or the conquerors of Mauritania ; the shorfa, "who regard as their
common mother Fatima, wife of Mohammed, and who consequently belong to the
Prophet's family ; lastly those whose ancestor is some reputed saint or marabut,
and who have thus acquired a sort of nobility not less respected than the others.
All these men stand higher than the common mass of the faithful, and when
favoured by circumstances, such as tribal feuds, wars, commotions, or family
occurrences, are ever ready to enforce their pretensions.
The tribal groupings also are not imf requently modified, the followers of con-
tending parties passing from one side to the other, according to the vicissitudes of *
these ambitious rivalries. Fragments of a single tribe have thus occasionally become
scattered throughout the whole of the Barbary States. Hence by purchasing the
friendship of one chief or another, the French Government has vainly hoped to
secure the loyalty of the whole tribe, the official protege being simply replaced by
some more popular rival in public favour. The policy pursued by the French has
also at times simply resulted in the creation of formidable opponents by founding
real Arab monarchies. It was hojDed that the work of pacification would be made
easy by dealing with a single chief instead of with the several heads of countless
tribes. Thus it was that under French patronage Abd-el-Kader became a sultan,
and the chief of the Ulad-Sidi sheikhs received as a fief the whole of the Algerian
Sahara, while Mokhrain assumed almost supreme power in southern Kabylia.
The lands hitherto reserved for the commune, the widow, the orphan, and the poor,
thus passed into the possession of the great feudal lords. Nevertheless the vassal
chiefs continued still powerful enough to revolt, and even since the French occupa-
tion have waged war with their suzerain.
Social Changes.
But this regime of the great Arab fiefs is drawing to a close. The virtually
independent chiefs are being gradually replaced by French administrators, or by
Mohammedan kadis, entrusted with the administration of justice, in accordance
with the Moslem jurisprudence accepted by the French tribunals. Sheikhs,
kaids, aghas, and bash-aghas, receive their investiture from the French authority,
and yield direct obedience to its orders. Their judicial fimctions are strictly
limited ; but they have not yet been deprived of the traditional prerogative of
indemnifying themselves from the proceeds of fines imposed on criminals — a
prerogative which has always proved a source of the most crying acts of injustice.
The dwars no longer enjoy the same facilities for migrating from the uplands
to the plains, and according as the country becomes settled, the nomad tribes find
their freedom of action more and more restricted. A continually increasing
number of natives are also abandoning the primitive tribal organisation, and
attaching themselves to the French commimes, in which they constitute the
proletariat class. The old habits disappear, customs change, a settled life takes
the place of the nomad state, the patriarchal yields to the communal system,
834
NOETH-WEST AFEIOA.
poly"-amy to monogamy. The last census for the city of Algiers returned five
ri<;. 150. — Ax Arab F^uiily of TLE:iCEy.
polygamous Mussulman faiuiiius, ami ihaL oi Uran not more than three, so that in^
ADMINISTEATIVE DIVISIONS. 335
this respect also tlie Moliammedan populations appear to be gradually conforming
to tKe usages of European civilisation.
The social transformation now going on creates a hope that all the ethnical
elements may ultimately become fused in one nationality, and that the j^rophets of
evil may thus be belied, "All these native populations," said one of them, " must
die out ; those who escape one disaster will perish by another, or become infected
, by the contagion of our blighting civilisation. Where we pass, everything decays."
The 'extermination of the natives might have seemed inevitable during the first
decades of the occupation, when the coimtry was wasted by razzias, when the Arab
" rebels " had neither corn nor cattle ; when their women, held as hostages, werfe
bartered for Kve stock, or sold by auction like beasts of burden ; when a price was
set on heads, and human ears paid for at the rate of two douros a pair. In those
days Arab prisoners acquitted by the courts were nevertheless executed, because
" it was necessary to make an example ; " nor were there wanting philosophers to
justify any acts of injustice or cruelty against the natives. " Without violating
the moral law," said Bodichon, "we can fight our African enemies with powder and
the sword combined -with famine, intestine feuds, brandy, corruption, and disorgani-
sation."
No one would now repeat such sentiments in Algeria, although many acts of
injustice are still committed, and the conquerors continue to abuse their power
against the weak. If the natives are being crowded out in many places, the
Mohammedan population still goes on increasing, slavery exists only on the verge
of the desert, and the wretched Khammes peasantry have almost everywhere ceased
to be true serfs, such as they were till recently on all the estates of the great
feudatory chiefs. The Arab has no longer the power of life and death over his
wife, whom he fears even to maltreat, lest her cries should reach the ears of some
"accursed Eumi."
Administrative Divisions.
For administrative purposes, Algeria is divided into two sections — the civil and
military territory. In the former, which comprises a portion of the Tell, the
ofl&cials are dependent on the Minister of the Interior, while in the latter they all
belong to the military class. In the one, affairs are administered with the same
routine as in France ; in the other, the tribes are governed by a form of martial
law. In the civil territory the three great divisions of Algiers, Constantino, and
Oran are designated by the name of "departments," like the modern circumscriptions
in France; in the military districts ("Territoire de Commandement ") the old
appellation of " provinces " has been preserved.
As in the mother country, the department is divided into arrondissements
administered by sub-prefects. The arrondissements are again subdivided into
districts, and these into communes, which for the most part are "depleinexercice,"
that is, fully privileged, their organisation being about the same as that of the
French communes.
336
NORTH-WEST AFEICA.
The mixed communes, less numerous than the others, are those in ^yhich the
native element still prevails, and where the Europeans only form small groups, too
weak to constitute a municipality. They are under the control of a civil adminis-
trator, who is required to speak Arabic or Berber. In the military districts,
certain circumscriptions are also called mixed communes ; but here Europeans and
natives alike are governed exclusively by military authority, the functions of
mayor being exercised by the commander-in-chief. Lastly, in the same districts a
number of purely native communes, comprising dwars, ferkas, tribes, and even
isolated towns, are controlled by officers of the regular army.
In 1881, there were altogether two hundred and nine communes enjoying full
privileges, and this number is gradually increasing by a process of subdivision, the
section demanding a municipal constitution as soon as it feels strong enough to sup-
port a separate administration. In 1884 there were seventy-five mixed communes in
Fig. 151.— Fully Peivileged, Mixed, and Native Cohuuxes in Algeria.
Scale 1 : 9,500.000.
CD
Pri\Ueged Communes. Civil Tem;.oi7. Military Territoiy.
— — ^— — .^— — — ISOSIiles.
the civil, and six in the military di.stricts, besides sixteen native communes created
l)y the military bureaux. But these so-called native communes are sometimes vast
regions, several square miles in extent. Such are those of Ghardaya, comj^rising
the whole of the !Mzab, Metlili, and Chaanba territories, with a total area of 2G,700
square miles, and of Biskra, which is nearly as large again, stretching from El
Kantara for 150 miles to and beyond Tugurt and Temassin, with an area approxi-
mately estimated at about 45,000 square miles. But as a rule, the larger the
commune the smaller the population : that of Algiers, scarcely two square miles in.
extent, having at once the smallest area and the largest number of inhabitants.
In the European communes the mimieipal councils arc elected by the suffrage
of the French citizens, while each of the three Algerian departments is represented
in Parliament by one senator and two deputies, elected according to the electoral
EELIGION— THE MAEABUTS.
837
laws of the mother-country. The departments also possess a separate general
council, elected in the same way as those of the French circumscriptions, and like
them occupied mostly with local affairs, such as the roads and forests, public
buildings, education and communal rates. Each delegates six of its members,
eighteen altogether, to the Superior Council of Algeria, which also comprises the
three prefects, the three generals in command of the divisions, and the twelve
members of the special council appointed to assist the governor-general. This
assembly, one half of whose members are thus nominated by the Government, and
the other half by the citizens indirectly, meets once a year for a session of aboujt
twenty days, to settle the current budget and the incidence of taxation. The
yearly expenditure is estimated at about £1,600,000, besides over £2,000,000
Fig. 152. — ^Relative Population of the Algerian Comhunes.
Scale 1 : 10,000,000.
c
orr
munes
Fuirir p
r'w/
lie 8 s J
i±*$it^
j^iamtfiiJimw
nataifiitfe
'|f|H[-?t#t#nt1ittt"
ttrttTTtHtrttt'itiituttttiniittttttt
fflM Sh'SitiiaiMfiamiHa
Bl;'i
If*^*
—
C
om
nur
les
jn.
1
^
—
—
—
IVli
ita
■y '
'cri
— L-
■ibo
r>
=J
Each complete square represents 500 European inhabitants.
required for the maintenance of the army. The yearly income about balances the
civil expenditure, representing nearly half of the whole outlay, including the
military budget.
Religion. — The Marabuts.
In Algeria the chief cause of disunion and the greatest obstacle to the fusion
of all sections of the population in one nationality is religion. Before the conquest
the natives had no official religious hierarchy ; but after the occupation the union
of Church and State was one of the very first measures introduced by the French.
Immediately after the capture of Algiers the prayers read in the mosques for the
head of the State were required to be modified by the imams, who henceforth pray
for the "auspicious Government of France." Formerly the civil power never
338
NOETH-WEST AFEICA.
intervened in the appointment of religious ministers ; now the mufti, the secondary-
imams, and some subordinate religious agents, are selected by the governors from
amongst men of letters well disposed towards the French. Not only does the
administration interfere in the religious affairs of the Mussulmans by these
appointments, but it also violates the constant practice of all Mohammedan
societies, according to which it is forbidden to pray and teach the Koran " for
wao-es." Ilence strict Mussulmans hold in small accoimt the salaried official
priesthood, preferring to the French imams the free marabuts who pray by the
Fig. 1-53. — Holt Cities axd Chief EEUOiotrs AssocxixioNS in Algeria.
Scale 1 : 0,500,000.
♦ 0° Mericiian,of Lreenwicl^
Confratomitifs rShadeliya-Dc-kavi/a.YTidjaniya YTaibiya TKhamanTya BNadnya JKarasiya TAissawa
rrinoipal j; iw^as a^ . . * - ,
Groups of 1,000 adherents «. o a • •......^...j a
180 Miles.
shrines of the saints, or the shorfa of the religious orders, Avho perpetuate the
" chain " of teachers from the time of the Prophet.
Although imofficially connected with the French Government, the marabuts
{mamhot) arc a source of little danger to the new regime. Belonging for the most
l)art to old families, whose genealogies go back to a remote past, accustomed to
live on regular alms of the faithful, residing always in the vicinity of the holy
places of pilgrimage, the marabuts arc all avoII known to the French officials, with
whom it is to their interest to live on the best of terms. Many even accept ser\ace
under the Government, allowing themselves to be appointed aghas or kaids, and
even intriguing for honours and decorations. Amongst the marabut tribes, one
THE M0HA:MMEDAX BEOTHEEnOODS. 339
especially, that of the Ulad-Sidi Sheikhs, was fonnerly nearly always hostile to
France ; and this tribe, residing in South Orania, far from the seaboard, naturally
looked -v^-ith the greatest displeasure on the advance of conquerors to whom they
would have to surrender the poKtical power and the right of levying taxes. But
on the whole, the marabuts represent primarily the conservative element in reli-
gion ; hence they tend to lean on the civil authorities in order to prevent the
development of the religious orders, which eclipse their sanctity and diminish
theii' income. They look on the independent associations in the same light that
the Ptoman Catholic secular clergy fonnerly did the regular clergy. Cases ocqur
of marabuts who close the doors of their schools to all students affiliated to a
religious order.
The [Mohammedan Brotherhoods.
These orders, which have nearly all their origin in Marocco, communicating
with that region through Tlemcen and Lalla Maghnia, are very numerous in the
French possessions, and their influence has increased precisely in proportion to
the favour shown by the Government to the imams and marabuts. The oldest is
that of Sidi Abd-el-Kader el-Jelani of Bagdad, whose zawj'as are scattered from
the shores of Malaysia to those of Marocco. The Tijaniyas, whose chief centres
are Ain-Mahdi and Temassin, were till recently the most powerful, and their
khwans extend to the banks of the Senegal. But their influence has been impaired
by the rise of the Senusiya and some other foundations.
There can be no doubt that since the French occupation the number of khwans,
a term corresponding to those of fakir and derwish in Turkey and the far East,
has considerably increased throughout Xorth Africa. It could scarcely be other-
wise, for wherever men are deprived either of political freedom or of national
autonomy, they endeavour to create for themselves some sphere of action impene-
trable to the outer world. Here they become absorbed in religious thought,
fostering their hatred against the infidel, and in the ecstasy of fanatical zeal at
times breaking into open insurrection. The Eahmaniya of Kabylia and the
Shadelya-Derkawa of different provinces, although most frequently persecuted by
Government because of their lawless spirit, are nevertheless the two orders which
have been most rapidly developed since the complete conquest of Algeria. Xor is
it possible even now to ascertain their actual strength, severe military supervision
having converted them into so many partly secret societies. According to Ptinn,
they comprised in 1881 altogether 170,000 members, of whom 96,000 belonged to
the Eahmaniya confraternity. All these khwans, grouped roimd 3oo zawj-as, have
nearly 2,000 mkaddems, under the orders of some twenty chiefs.
About one-fifth of the native population would appear to belong to one or other
of the sixteen great Algerian brotherhoods. A nimiber of Kabyle women are also
said to have joined the religious societies in the quality of "sisters." There are,
moreover, some other associations which affect a rehgious air, but which are
merely strolling corporations of singers, dancers, snake-charmers, acrobats, and
fortune-tellers.
S40 NOETn-AVEST .VFRICA.
At first sio-bt the religious organisation of such a large section of the Mussul-
man population might seem to constitute a real danger for the French supremacy.
A number of writers even regard these institutions as so many societies of con-
spirators banded together both by a common faith and hatred of their rulers. At
nio-ht in the Moorish coffee-houses, after the story-telling and recitation of poetry
is concluded, the khwans are said to draw near, and to utter in bated breath the
prophecies foretelling the approaching advent of the Mul-el-Saa, or " Lord of -the
Hour." Thcv speak of the day when the Mussulman soil shall be cleansed from
the presence of the detested Rumi, and mutually excite each other to hatred of the
foreigner.
Doubtless gatherings of this sort are of frequent occurrence ; but the religious
brotherhoods lack the unity necessary to give consistency to these conspiracies.
Certainly the various orders profess the purest orthodoxy, differing little from
each other except in their formulas, genuflexions, and other outward observances.
It is also true that the members of each association are mutually connected by the
strictest obligations of the confraternities. But the various groups are still far
from considering themselves as united in a compact body. Each order is itself split
up into distinct sections, with nothing in common except the spiritual rule, and
differino' from each other in the conflicting interests of their several sheikhs and
mkaddems. Like the marabuts, most of the latter have chiefly at heart the
accumulation of wealth and increase of their personal influence. They seek to
stand well with the constituted authorities, and will even occasionally favour
Christians with letters of protection and diplomas of "honorary associates," entitling
them to the support of the community like ordinary members. Insurrections are
seldom caused by religious motives, nor have the orders ever plunged bodily into a
** holy war." All the khwans seem to bear in mind the Sufi principle forbidding
them "to risk death in undertakings above their strength." " Fear the French I
The fear of the French is the fear of God ! " said a religious sheikh to his disciples
in the Khcnga oasis.
Thus, however great their hatred of the invader, they have lost the warlike
spirit necessary to contend with him. Compelled to absolute submission towards
their chiefs, " as towards God himself," bound to dismiss from their mind " all
argument good or bad, lest meditation lead them into error," their sole ambition
being to impart to their limbs, their voice, and expression, the mechanical forms of
the ritual, the khwans become gradually transformed to helpless imbeciles incapable
of will or understanding. In reciting certain prayers the face has to be turned to
the right shoulder while uttering hi, then to the left saying hu, then bent down
with a Jt(t. The omission of these mutterings and attitudes renders the prayer
inefficacious. The history of Algeria shows that insurrectionary movements have
never acquired any real importance amongst these degraded devotees, but only
amongst the manly tribes which have preserved the full consciousness of their
political life.
EDUCATION. 341
Edvcatiox.
The Frencli Government lias endeavoured to secure the support of Islam by-
endowing the Mussulman priesthood ; but it has hitherto done little to raise the
natives to the level of Europeans by education. The French schools specially
» opened for the Arab and Berber children are few in number and for the most part
badly supported. The European schools are doubtless also open to the Mussulmans,
and are frequented by a few hundred natives. But the proportion of those
receiving regular instruction is very low in a population of nearly three millions.
The zaw^'as, of which nearly one thousand are supposed to exist in Algeria, are
sometimes spoken of as real schools ; but they have little claim to the title, the
children who frequent them, to the number of about thirty thousand, being taught
little except to recite verses from the Koran. Girls are seldom admitted, nor do
the}' enter the schools of European foundation, except in very rare cases. It could
scarcely be otherwise, so long as custom requires them to marry at an age when
European children are still playing with their dolls.
Amongst the Kabyles, instruction is more highty prized than amongst the
Arabs, and all schools opened for them by the administration or by the Catholic
and Protestant missionaries are eagerly frequented by both sexes. All the tribal
assemblies have petitioned for French schools to be established in their communes,
readily accepting the condition of gratuitous and obligator}- instruction. Education
is also held in great honour by the Berbers of the Saharian oases, and in several
towns, notably Biskra, all the children already speak and write French.
Of the whole population, over a million now speak French, either as their
mother tongue or as an acquired language. Arabic, notwithstanding the wealth of
its former literature, no longer lends itself readily, at least in Algeria, to the
requirements of modern culture. With the exception of an official journal and a
few legal and administrative documents, all the local periodical literature is
European, and mostly French. The only xirab works printed are translations
made by Europeans, or else historical records published by the learned societies ;
nor has any revival of native letters made itself felt after half a century of French
occupation.
Amongst the European settlers, instruction is relatively more widely diffused
than in the home country. At present education is somewhat less general amongst
the Jews than amongst the French, a circumstance due to the state of degradation
in which the race was long held by its Mohammedan oppressors. But on the other
hand, the Jews pay more attention to the instruction of their children than any
other section of the community. Public instruction, on which the Algerian
communes spend on an average 17 per cent, of their income, is organised on the
same model as in France. According to a law of 1883, every commune is bound to
maintain one or more primary schools, open gratuitously to European and native
children. A school for sirls must also be established in all communes with over
o
five hundred inhabitants.
342
NOETH-WEST xUTEICA.
Administration of Justice. — The Army.
In virtue of the capitulation of Algiers, tlie Freneli Government is bound to
permit the free exercise of the native laws and usages. Nevertheless, the local
French magistrates have naturally endeavoured gradually to restrict the jurisdic-
tion of the Mussulman courts. The kadis soon felt the rivalry of the French
tribunals, to which appeal could always be made. At present the kadis, to the
Pijr. 1)4.— Algiees in 1832.
number of about one hundred and fifty, constitute with the adcls, or assistant
judges, a mahahma, or court of justice, which in every circumscription is attached
to the tribunals of first instance. Their forensic practice, while regulated by the
Koran, must still adapt itself to the exigencies of the French law. The instruction
given in the ^Icdersa, or law school of Algiers, becomes daily more assimilated to
that of the French legal schools ; while Mussuhnan society is itself brought more
within the reach of the French courts by the appointment of justices of the peace
witli II wide jurisdiction over Europeans and natives alike. Assize courts arc held
in the four cities of Algiers, Oran, Constantino, and Dona ; and in Algiers is seated
a coui-t of appeal, the highest tribunal in Algeria.
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE— THE ARMY.
343
The army of occupation, forming tlie nineteenth corps, comprises soldiers of all
arms sent from France, besides a considerable proportion of local recruits. To
these must be added three regiments of Ttircos, or Algerian rifles, and one for
Tunis, all native volunteers, mainly Kabyles and Saharians. Two regiments of
the Foreign Legion are formed of Swiss, Belgians, Germans, and other Europeans,
driven by want or the spirit of adventure to take ser^-ice abroad. Four regiments
of zouaves, including many volunteers, have been created in Algeria, besides three
of spahis, or cavaby, and four of " Chasseurs d'Afrique." In the army are also
Fig. 155. — TiABET A^^) Tagdejit.
Scale 1 : 100,000.
.-.i\m'''^
^!;'\;v'^'"'i," ;i"'liys„«~?-'-"^^..
E of Gnee"/v cl-
•v>^TlH<^ET
V
[° g-
3,300 Yarus.
included the gendarmerie, about a thousand strong, and the Arab giims, or
contingents of horse equipj)ed by the tribal chiefs.
The old Arab and Turkish fortifications have almost everywhere disappeared.
The kasbahs or citadels of the strongholds have either been razed to the groimd or
so modified that their original form can no longer be recognised; the square
bastions, with their graceful flanking towers, the imposing gateways on which were
spiked " the gory heads of traitors," have left little but a name, like that of the
Bab-Azun at Algiers, which the army of Charles Y. failed to capture. Even
the ramparts raised by Abd-el-Kader have been destroyed, and the explorer finds
near Tiaret scarcely a vestige of Tagdemt, at one time the central stronghold of
his empire.
On the Saharian slope, where no European attack is to be dreaded, the French
military posts, such as those of Biskra and Laghwat, are mere fortified barracks,
or else ancient kasbahs adapted to the requirements of a French garrison. The
344 N0ETH-^T:ST AFRICA.
Saharians are the natural allies of tlie Europeans against the Arabs of the plateaux
and of the steppes draining southwards. On the plateaux what are needed are not
fortresses but carriage roads, by means of which the swiftest nomad marauders may-
be overtaken and dispersed. After the fall of Tagdemt and the construction of
o-ood hi"-hways from the coast to the central plateaux, the conquest of Algeria was
virtually completed.
The limits of the military divisions coincide with those of the three departments
of Al""iers, Oran, and Constantino ; but there are some differences in the admmis-
fative and military subdivisions. In each division are seated two councils of war,
besides inferior courts which deal with minor offences against discipline. The Arab
tribmials, which formerly depended on the military administration, have now been
placed imder the direct control of the governor-general.
In the Appendix will be found a table of all the administrative divisions and
subdivisions of Algeria, with their chief towns and communes.
CHAPTEH X.
MAROCCO.
HE term Marocco, given by Europeans to the triangular region
bounded north-east on the Mediterranean by the Wed Ajerud,
south-west on the Atlantic by the Wed Nun, is taken in a far more
restricted sense by the natives, for whom Marrakesh, the Marruecos
of the Spaniards, is one only of the three states subject to the
sultan-sherif. His empire is completed in the north by the kingdom of
Fez, in the south-east by the Tafilelt oasis, while vast districts occupied by
numerous independent tribes are also comprised within the space usually desig-
nated on our maps by the appellation of Marocco. The inhabitants have no
common term for the whole of this region, which in many places has no definite
frontiers, and which is vaguely designated Maghreb-el- Aksa, " The Extreme
West."
But notwithstanding its uncertain nomenclature, Marocco constitutes none the
less a distinct geographical unit. A certain physical imity is imparted to the
whole of the region comprised between Algeria and the Atlantic by the lofty Deren
ranges, with their parallel foldings, spurs, and valleys merging in the lowland
plains which stretch on the one hand seawards, on the other in the direction of the
Sahara. The absence of political cohesion is also compensated by a common faith,
while the very rivalries of foreign powers, especially England, France, and Spain,
serve to imj)art to the whole of Marocco a certain solidarity, by isolating it from
the rest of the continent.
Within its conventional limits, as determined by diplomacy, the region defined
south-westwards by a straight line running from the Figuig oasis across the desert
to the mouth of the Wed Draa (Draha), may have a superficial area of about
200,000 square miles, with a scant poj)ulation, which in the absence of all ofiicial
documents can scarcely be even ajDproximately conjectured. The estimates vary
from Kloden's 2,750,000 to Jackson's 15,000,000, the actual number being,
perhaps, between eight and nine millions.
Marocco has not yet been thoroughly explored by European travellers. For
three centuries the published accounts of the country were little more than
reproductions of the work written by the Arab renegade, Leo Africanus. Till the
AFRICA I. a a
346
NORTH-WEST AFEICA.
end of the last century, the only Europeans who penetrated into the interior were a
few missionaries sent to redeem captive Christians, some mariners wrecked on the
coast, or envoys to the Sultan's court. But in 1789 the country was traversed by
Lempriere, who was followed at the beginning of the nineteenth century by the
Spaniard, -LVli-Bcy. Since then many journeys have been made along the routes
Fig. 156. — KoTJTES OF THE Chief Exploeees di Maeocco.
Scale 1 : 9,000,000.
B
Depths.
0tol,6o0
Feet.
1,600 to 3,200 3,200 to 6,.100 6,400 to 12,80Q 12,800 Feet and
feet. Feet. Feet. upwarda.
Regions crossed in all directions by explorers.
Routes of travellers.
120 Miles.
between Tangier, Fez, Meknes, and Rhat, and between Mogador and the city of
Marocco.
These itineraries indicate with tolerable accuracy the limits sejDaratiug the
Bled-el-Makhzen, or settled region, from the Bled-el-Siba, or indei)endent districts
held by tribes who refuse to pay the imjDosts or accept military service. In the
UXROCCO.
U7
Bled-el-Makhzen Europeans travel in perfect safety, Tvithout being compelled to
disguise their origin. But they could scarcely venture to penetrate openly into
the regions occupied by the independent tribes, regions comprising about five-
sixths of the territory on our maps designated by the name of Marocco. The
inhabitants of the Bled-es-Siba have, perhaps, good reason to believe that the
Fig'. 157. — Bled-el-Maehztx axd Bled-es-Siea.
Scale 1 : 9,000,003.
0 to 1 ,600
1 eet.
l.COO to 3,-JOO
feet.
Depths
200 to 6,'40O
6.400 to 12,S0O
Feet. "
12.SO0 Feet and
upwards.
ISO ililes.
exploration of their domain by Christian travellers would be followed by conquering
armies advancing along the routes thrown open by their peaceful forerunners.
Amongst the districts that have hitherto been scarcely visited is the Eif coast,
which is nevertheless yearly skirted by thousands of ships plying east of the Strait
of Gibraltar. Even on the direct route between Fez and Marocco, many hUly
tracts are kno-^Ti only from the reports of the natives. The Atlas, the Anti- Atlas,
948 XOETH-^^ST AFRICA.
and all the land draining to the desert, as far as the Algerian frontier, have
hitherto been traversed only by two or three Europeans. Of Caillc's expedition
little is kno\\Ti beyond its approximate line of march ; Rohlfs merely skirted on
the north the main Atlas range, which Lenz crossed at its southern extremity.
But De Foucauld, disguised as a Jew, penetrated much farther inland, surmounting
the Atlas at several points, discovering the Bani range, determining over forty
astronomic positions and three thousand altitudes. But a detailed account of his
explorations, with the maps and other documents embodying the result of his surveys,
ttill awaits publication.
The Atlas Highlands.
In Marocco the Atlas system attains its greatest elevation. Here the main
range runs south-west and north-east, following the axis of north-west Africa from
Cape Blanc through Cape Bojador to the headland of Algiers. The whole coast
region between the mouths of the Sus and Moluya lies, so to say, beyond the
continental mass dominated by uplands already belonging to the intermediate zone
now pierced by the Strait of Gibraltar. The range deviates slightly from the
normal north-easterly direction, developing a sort of arc, with its convex side turned
towards the Sahara. Excluding the subordinate ridges and those continuing the
system in Algeria, it has a total length of about 360 miles between Cape Gher
north of the Sus and the Jebel Aiashin, forming its extreme north-eastern rami-
fication. No collective name is applied to the system by the natives, who restrict
the general term Idraren, or " Mountains," or Idraren Deren, to its western
section. The word Deren is evidently the same as the Dyris or Dyrin known to
Strabo.
The Jebel Aiashin (Aiashi) appears to be one of the loftiest chains in Marocco.
According to Rohlfs and De Foucauld, the only modern explorers who have^ yet
described this part of the Atlas, its summits are distinguished from all the sur-
rounding crests by their snowy whiteness. Bohlfs even confirms the statement of
the Boman general, Suetonius Paulinus, that they are covered with perpetual snows.
But he visited these uplands in the month of May, and the natives questioned by
him may have spoken of the snows which remain in the crevasses and ravines
impenetrable to the solar rays.
But however this be, the Jebel Aiashin, or Magran, as it is also called, probably
rises to a height of 11,600 feet, being surpassed in elevation only by a few peaks
in the main range. It is composed chiefly of sandstones and schists, and throws
off some lateral ridges, constituting parting lines between several river basins.
"Westward stretches the Ait-Ahia, continued through the Aian and the rocky spurs
which rise above the plains of Fez. To the north-east the Jebel Tamarakuit, a
branch of the Aian, follows the normal direction of the Atlas system. One of its
depressions is flooded by the lovely alpine lake Sidi Ali Mohammed, in whose clear
waters are mirrored the wooded slopes of the surrounding hills. The Tamarakuit
is continued north-eastwards by a range, which is pierced by the Moluya and
THE ATLAS HIGHLANDS.
349
Sharf rivers, and wMcli terminates in Algeria in the Tlemcen mountains. The
Jebel Aiashin itself falls rapidly northwards, terminating abruptly in the stupendous
cliffs of the Jebel Terneit, which rises nearly 7,000 feet above the surrounding
plains. This imposing rampart, forming the northern extremity of the whole
Kg. 158. — Ceests AiTD Passes of the Atlas south of Maeeakesh.
Scale 1 : 720,000.
12 ililes.
system, presents a striking contrast to the boundless plateaux, which here appear
to have been gradually leveUed by the action of the streams and glaciers formerly
descending from the Atlas.
South of the Jebel Aiashin the main range, still unviaited by any European
8o0 XORTII-WEST .VPrJCA.
explorers, seems to maiutain a mean altitude of over 11,600 feet. According to
Foucauld, there is not a single pass accessible to caravans for a distance of 90 miles
THE ATLAS HIGHLANDS. 351;
to the south of tlie hills which skirt the northern face of the Ai'ashin on the route from
Fez to Tafilelt. But farther on towards the south-west, occur several breaches
affording communication between the Um-er-Ebia and Draa basins. Of these the most
important are the three Tizi n'Glawi passes between the Jebel Aniemer and the
Jebel Tidili, which are practicable throughout the year.
South-west of this depression rises the imposing mass of the snowy Jebel Sirwa,
which is probably the culminating point of the Atlas system. Standing somewhat
beyond the main axis, it forms a connecting Knk between the Great and Little
Atlas, and separates the two basins of the Sus and Draa. The Mount Miltsir)^,
surveyed in 1829 by TVashington, no subsequent traveller has been able to identify
by that name, which appears to be unknown to the natives. According to Ball
and Hooker, it refers perhaps to a mountain 36 miles south-east of Marrakesh, whose
highest peak may be about 13,200 feet. Seen from the capital, the chain of the
Atlas presents the aspect of an almost unbroken rampart covered with snow till
the early summer. According to Maw, the mean altitude in this section is about
13,000 feet, the highest peaks rising scarcely more than 600 feet above this median
line. Thus the Atlas is much inferior in extreme elevation to the Alps, although
for a space of at least 100 miles it maintains a mean height greater than that of
any of the Alpine ranges.
The Tagherut Pass, about the meridian of Marrakesh, leading southwards to the
Upper Sus Valley, stands at a height of perhaps 11,600 feet, and is approached by
rugged gorges presenting great difficulties to pack animals. But 18 miles farther
west a large breach presents an easy passage to caravans. From the summit of the
pyramidal Jebel Tiza, which attains an altitude of over 11,000 feet, a view is
commanded of this narrow defile, above which it towers to a height of 4,000 feet.
West of this point the main range, here running perpendicularly to the coast, still
maintains an average altitude of 10,000 feet, as far as another deep gorge known
as the " Tizi " or " Pass," in a pre-eminent sense, which is crossed at an elevation
of 4,000 feet by the route leading from Marocco to Tarudant in the Sus Valley.
This pass, which also takes the name of Bibawan and Biban, or the " Gates," has
been traversed by Lempriere, Jackson and other explorers. Beyond it the
maritime Atlas still presents a superb aspect, with peaks exceeding 8,000 feet.
As far as is known of its geological constitution, the Atlas consists largely of
sandstones, together with old schists, limestones, and marbles, while porphyries
seem to prevail in the central parts of the Deren range. Diorites and basalts occur
in several places, and the Jebel Tiza, ascended by Ball and Hooker, forms a
porphyry dome, which has cropped out through the mica schists. The character of
the rocks in the main range is revealed chiefly by the debris scattered along its
slopes, and which, according to Maw, are of glacial origin. At elevations of from
6,000 to 8,000 feet, the valleys sloping towards the Atlantic are filled with lateral,
median, and terminal moraines, apparently differing in no respect from those of the
Alps. A series of hills composed entirely of glacial debris also occurs at the foot
of the moimtains, where they occupy a broad zone interrupted at intervals by the
lateral valleys.
352 NOETH-TMilST AFEICA.
A similar o-lacial origin is attributed to the undulations on the great plateaux
stretchino east of the Atlas along the axis of the orographic system in the province
of Oran. A portion of this jalatcau is filled by the shott or sebkha of Tigri, which
is strewn with a reddish argillaceous deposit. This shott does not form a single
basin, but is divided into several secondary depressions standing at different levels
between the altitudes of 3,700 and 3,800 feet.
The greatest contrast is presented by the two slopes of the Atlas. The declivity
exposed to the moist clouds of the Atlantic is covered here and there with verdure,
^nd in some places, especially towards its northern extremity, clothed with
mao-nificcnt forests. But the opposite side, facing the desert, is both much steeper
and more arid, presenting the aspect of bare rocky surfaces burnt by the parching
winds coming uj? from the sands. Yet the southern escarpments are almost
everywhere protected from these winds by a lower parallel chain, usually designated
bv the name of the Little Atlas, or Anti- Atlas.
The Little Atlas and Bani Ranges.
In its western section, south of the "Wed Sus, the Anti-Atlas, seen by Ball and
Hooker from the summit of the Jebel Tiza, seemed to have an elevation of about
10,000 feet. But Rohlfs, who crossed it on his journey from Tarudant to Tafilelt,
gives it a mean altitude of not more than 5,000 feet, or about half that of the Great
Atlas. Towards the east it is known to the natives by the name of the Jebel
Shagheruu.
A broad and apparently perfectly level zone separates the Little Atlas from
another ridge running parallel with the main axis of the system. The Bani, as
this ridge is called, rises little more than 500 or GOO feet above the surrounding
plains, with a thickness of about a mile from base to base. The Bani, which is
destitute of lateral chains or spurs, is said to begin near Tamagurt, on the Draa, and
to run north of that river almost in a straight line for a distance of nearly 3G0 miles
to the Atlantic. It is pierced at intervals by khcnegs, or defiles, usually very
narrow, above which five or six streams converge in a single channel, through
which the waters of the Little Atlas find their way to the Draa. One of these
khenegs is regarded by the Berbers as the cradle of their race, and here they
assemble every year to offer sacrifices, followed by feasts and dancing.
Throughout its entire course the bare rocky mass of the Bani range consists of
a sandstone, charred in appearance, and covered with a bright black incrustation.
This sandstone is probably of Devonian origin, like the blackish sandstones of the
Central Sahara, and like them it is sometimes polished, sometimes striated or
grooved, effects due to the incessant action of the sands. Between the Bani and
the Draa Valley occur here and there certain rocky protuberances, to which the
natives give the name of " snakes," from their serpentine appearance when seen
from a distance. Like the Bani, they are all disposed in the normal direction of
the Atlas system, from south-west to north-east.
THE LITTLE ATLAS AND BANI EANGES. 353
East of the "Wed Draa stretches a hilly region, which forms a continuation of
the South Oran border ranges. Some of the crests assume the fantastic forms of
crenellated walls, towers, or pyramids. Between Figuig and Tafilelt, Rohlfs
observed one so like the nave of a church flanked with its belfry, that for a moment
he believed himself the victim of an optical delusion.
"West of the Great Atlas the secondary chains are no longer disposed in the
direj3tion of the main axis, but branch off irregularly towards the coast. One of
these, beginning at the Bibawan Pass, near the western extremity of the Atlas,
attains in some of its peaks heights of over 3,300 feet, and under the name of tbp
Jebel Hadid, or " Fire Mountain," falls down to the coast between Mogador and
the mouth of the Wed Tensift. Over the district between Mogador and Marocco
are also scattered isolated tables, like those in Eastern Mauritania, between Ghadames
and the Mzab, all at the same level, and evidently the remains of an older surface
layer broken into detached fragments by atmospheric agencies.
But while some rocky formations thus become weathered, others continue to
grow, probably under the peculiar action of rain water. The plain of Marocco is
in this way covered with a crust of tufa, which fills up all the irregularities of the
surface, varj-ing in thickness from a few inches to three feet, and in many places
presenting the appearance of agate. Such is its consistency, that by excavating
the earth beneath it, the natives are able to form caves, or matamoras, as the
Spaniards call them, in which cereals and other provisions are preserved. On the
Marocco coast fras'iuents of lavas and volcanic ashes are also found enclosed in
rocks of recent formation. These debris had their origin perhaps in the craters of
the Canary islands, whence they were wafted by the trade winds across the
intervening marine strait.
The Jebel Aian and Beni Hassan Uplands.
Of the lateral ridges branching from the Great Atlas on the Atlantic slope, the
loftiest and most extensive is the Jebel Aian, which takes its origin towards the
northern extremity of the main range, and which separates the "Upper Sebu from
the Fpper Um-er-Rbia Valley. The Jebel Aian, which is often covered with snow,
forms the central nucleus whence ramify the various branches of these almost
unknown ujDlands. None of the heights have yet been measured, and the whole
region is held by independent Berber tribes, who neither pay tribute nor military
service to the empire.
North Marocco is occupied by mountain masses indirectly connected with the
Atlas system. On the one hand the "Wed Sebu, flowing to the Atlantic, on the
other the Moluya, a tributary of the :Mediterranean, enclose with their several
aflauents a quadangular space, in which the ridges are not disposed in the normal
direction of the general orographic system. A depression, probably about 1,000
feet high, separates the two regions on the route from Fez to Tlemcen, a great
part of the intermediate space being occupied by hills of reddish argillaceous
formation.
354
XOETn-WEST ^iFEICA.
All these xiplands, in which the older rocks seem to prevail, descend towards
the Rif, that is, the " coast," developing a vast semicircle of hills from the Tres
Forcas headland to Point Ceuta. The central mass takes the name of Sanejat-
Serir, and on the coast the loftiest summits are those of Bcni-Hassan, west of
Tetuan. The Beni-Hassan, whose cuhninating point is over 6,G00 feet, is continued
southwards through the Mezejel, the Jebel-el-Kimas, and the Zarzar, whose conic
sunuuit rises above the town of Wezzan. The whole system produces an imposing
effect, resembling a number of Eocks of Gibraltar placed side by side on a conunon
Fig. 160.— The Tetcax HiGTrT.ANT)3.
Scale 1 : 1,600,000.
53'^
i'-'^
\M, / J
5z : : r-
7
hl^
h- , i — J
tar
r
, i
V/rB< (if Greenwich
0 to 160
Feet.
f ' 1
160 to 320
Feet.
Depths.
320 to 040
Feet.
6-10 to 1280
Feet.
12K0 Feet and
upwards.
30 Miles.
pedestal. The running waters, grassy tracts, wooded and cultivated slopes, render
thi.s angle of the continent one of the most delightful regions in Mauritania, forming
in this respect a striking contrast with the arid and rugged escarpments of the Rif,
which stretches thence eastwards.
The hills skirting the strait over against Gibraltar, although lacking the
elevation, majestic appearance, and rich vegetation of the Beni-IIassan highlands,
acquire great importance from their position along this great maritime highway.
THE JEBEL AIAN AXD BEXI HASSAN UPLANDS. 355
The border chain of the Jcbel Ilauz terminates northwards in the Jebel
Belliimesh, the Sierra de BuUones of the Spaniards, which is identified as the
Septem Fratres (" Seven Brothers ") of the ancients. Towards the east this mass
develops the narrow peninsula which is connected bv a fortified isthmus with the
isolated bluff of Ceuta ; on the other hand it projects northwards to form the
Jebel Muca headland, which is the southern of the two " Pillars of Hercules."
* This , southern pillar, the Abyla of the ancients, is scarcely less imposing than the
Rock of Gibraltar, and is even of greater height (2,850 feet). But a nearer view
shows that it is a shapeless mass, a chaos of rocks, offering a retreat to wolves, wild
boars, and monkeys. The term " Elephant Moimtain," applied to it by Strabo, is
justified by the appearance it presents when seen from a distance. At the same
time, the forests which flourished in this region of the continent eighteen hundred
years ago, were, according to Pliny, still frequented b}" elephants.
West of the Mons Abyla other crests follow along the narrowest part of the
strait. But beyond Cape Ciris the coast begins to trend southwards through a
series of curves separated one from the other b}' the detached headlands of the Jebel
Hauz. Beyond the cliffs of Tangier the coast-line again abruptly turns south-
wards. Above the cape forming the north-western angle of the continent, the
headland of Spartel, or Ishbertil, the Tarf-esh-Shakr of the natives, rises to a height
of 1,040 feet. Cape Spartel is the ancient promontory of Ampelousion, or " Vine
Point," and this district still yields the best grapes inMarocco. The neighbouring
town of El-Araish has for its coat-of-arms bunches of grapes, which a ftian is lifting
with an effort. One of the caverns in Cape Spartel excavated by the surf was
formerly dedicated to Hercules, and near it stood the tomb of Antaeus. Thus was
s}Tnbolised the struggle between the blind forces of nature and the triumphant
genius of man at this " land's end," where vessels sailing westwards entered on the
trackless ocean.
For a distance of over 360 miles, between Cape Spartel and Mogador, the
Atlantic seaboard almost everj-where presents a low surf-beaten beach, which is
carefully avoided by mariners. The shallow waters extend seawards for over 30
miles, where the plummet first reaches depths of 660 feet. Along the coast the
highest headland is that of Cape Cantin, whose alternating layers of grey and red
marls, Kmestones, and ferruginous clays, terminate here in vertical cliffs, elsewhere
in irregular step formations. Signs of upheaval have been observed at various
points, and an old beach containing deposits of shells runs along the coast at a
mean height of 65 feet above the present sea-level. But according to some
authorities, the opposite phenomenon of subsidence has been noticed, at least at
Mogador.
Rivers of Marocco.
Enjoying a more copious rainfall than the rest of Mauritania, !Marocco is able
to send seawards a larger number of rivers, some of which, although reduced by
evaporation and irrigation works in their lower course, retain a larger volume than
856 NOIlTn-AMi:ST ATEICA.
any in Algeria. According to Ball and Hooker, the mean discharge of all the
streams flowing from the Atlas to the Atlantic is about 7,875 cubic feet. Yet none
EIVERS OF MAROCCO.
357
of tlie wadies are of any use for navigation, the only craft plying on tlicm being
ferryboats of a very primitive type.
On the Mediterranean slope the chief river is the Moluya (Mnluya), which has
its source amid the snows of the Aiashin mountains, and is farther down swollen
by the "Wed Za and other tributaries from the east. The Moluya (M'luya) is the
Molochat, !Malua, or Malva of the ancients, who regarded it as the natural frontier
between the two Mauritanias (Mauritania Tingitana and Caesariensis), During
the Berber and Arab epochs, down to the year 1830, it also formed the boundary
between Algeria and Marocco ; but the political frontier having been shifted east-
Fig. 162.— LOWEE COTJRSE OF THE SeBU.
Scale 1 : 400,000.
/ii\<!'''^'X^
6° 40
Depths.
Oto32
Feet.
32 to 64
Feet.
64 Feet and
upwards.
■ 6 Miles.
wards by the treaties of Tafna and Tangier, both banks of the river are now
included in Marocco territory. Its mouth is sheltered on the north-west by the
ZafParine islets, so called from the Beni-Jafer Berber tribe, which at some distance
from the coast form a sort of semicircular breakwater, behind which vessels ride
in safety during the prevalence of the fierce north-east gales.
Farther west the Rif seaboard presents nothing but small coast streams, such
as the Wed-esh-Sherat, which reaches the sea near. Tangier. On the Atlantic
slope the first important stream south of Cape Spartel is the Wed-el-Khus, which
has its rise in the western escarpments of the Beni-Hassan highlands, and reaches
the sea some 36 miles south of the Strait. From this point the monotonous coast-
358
NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
line continues to run in a south-westerly direction to tlie moutli of the Sebu, the
Sebur of the Phoenicians, the largest river in ^larocco, and next to the Nile the
most copious in North Africa. Having a width of from 400 to 1,000 feet, and a
Fig. 163. — Arabs axd Berbers of !MAOiiREB-EL-AKSi.
Scale 1 : 9,000,000.
'IVest of Ij'-ee'ivvlc
0 to 1,600
Feet.
^3
Berbers.
1,600 to 3,200
Feet.
Haratin, Black Berbers.
Depths.
Arabs.
3,200 to 6,400
Feet.
6,400 to 128,000
Feet.
128/ no Feet and
upwards.
ISO ililes.
mean depth of 10 feet throughout its lower course, the Sebu might be made avail-
able for navigation, at least for a great part of the year. But at present all
passenger and goods traffic between the coast and the interior in this jjart of
Marocco is carried on by land. The riverain tribes are far too restless to allow a
EIYEES OF MAEOCCO. 359
regular trade route to be establisliecl along tlie course of the river, -svlilcli nevertlie-
less waters one of the most productive regions in Marocco. The main stream fonns
the natural highway of communication between the Atlantic seaboard and the
Moluya, draining to the Mediterranean, and in the fertile plains watered by the
Sebu is situated Fez, the first city in the empire. Travellers following the coast
route from Tangier to Mogador cross the Sebu by a ferryboat of j)runitive
structure, which does not relieve them from the necessity of wading through the
mud. The tides ascend a long way up the lower course of the Sebu.
About 18 miles south-west of the Sebu, the Bu-Regrag reaches the Atlantic
through a rocky channel excavated in the slightly elevated plateau. This river
rises, not in the Great Atlas, like the Moluya, Sebu, and Draa, but in the advanced
hills skirting the Fez territory on the south ; and although scarcely more than
120 miles long, it takes the foremost position in the political geography of the
country ; for it forms the frontier Kne between the two kingdoms of Fez and
Marocco, and near it stood the outpost of Ad Mercurios, which marked the utmost
limit of the Roman province of Mauritania Tingitana.
The Um-er-Rbia, or " Mother of Pastures," so named from the rich grazing-
grounds skirting its banks, is said by Renu and Hooker to be the most copious
stream in Marocco. During the dry season it is fordable at many points ; but in
the rainy season travellers are detained for weeks on its bank, waiting the subsi-
dence of the floods to cross over. For a space of about 120 miles, between the
mouth of the Um-er-Rbia and the Tensift, no other watercourse reaches the sea.
Nor is the Wed Tensift itself one of the great rivers of Marocco, although the city
of Marocco Kes in its basin. Here the rainfaU is far less abundant than in the
northern provinces, and in summer the mouth of the Tensift is completely closed
by the sands at low water.
The "Wed Sus, the Subus of the ancients, which takes its rise between the
Atlas and Anti- Atlas, is also an intermittent stream, flooded in winter, and
throughout its lower course almost completely dry in summer. "When crossed by
Lenz in March, below Tarudant, some 60 miles above its mouth, it was a mere
rivulet 10 or 12 feet wide and less than 2 feet deep. The Wed Assaka, which
skirts the southern foot of the Atlas, is also mostly dry, explorers often finding
nothing but sand in its bed.
Even the ■\^^ed Draa, by far the longest river in Marocco, is much inferior in
volume to the Moluya, Sebu, and Um-er-Rbia, and seldom reaches the Atlantic.
Its chief headstreams rise in the snowj- cirques of the Great Atlas, and for a
distance of about 180 miles, from the Idraren Deren to the Aiashin range, all the
streams on the southern slope of the main range flow towards the Draa, which
escapes southwards through a series of gorges in the Jebel Shagherun. For a
space of 600 miles below the gorges its volume constantly diminishes, absorbed
partly by the arable lands along its banks, partly by evaporation and infiltration
in the sands. After emerging from the upper gorges, it flows at first southwards,
skirted on both banks by a strip of pahn groves, varjdng in breadth from 500 yards
to nearly 2 miles. But after skirting the eastern extremity of the Bani range and
360 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
the parallel " snake " ridges, the Draa, exhausted by the irrigation canals branch-
ino rio-ht and left through the plantations, is no longer able to maintain a regular
course. It spreads out in the vast Debaya depression, which is alternately a lake,
a swamp, and a watery plain, on which crops of cereals are raised. Below this
depression it trends towards the south-west, here flowing between high banks, and
receiving- a number of intermittent torrents from the Anti-Atlas. But when
these tributaries run diy, no surface water is left in its lower course, although,
according to local tradition and historic records, it formerly reached the* sea
through a broad and permanent estuary. At that time crocodiles and hippo-
potami frequented its waters, and elephants roamed in herds over the riverain
forests.
The stream, which under the names of "Wed Zis and "Wed Guers, flows due
south from the northern extremity of the Great Atlas, after watering the
Tafilelt oases, 150 miles from its source, runs dry in the sands of the desert. No
traveller has yet ascertained whether its bed is continued southwards across the
great dunes trending west towards the Draa, or east to the Messawara basin, or
continuing an independent course in the direction of the Niger. The "Wed Guir
hydrographic system, which begins in the last cirques of the Great Atlas
immediately east of the "Wed Zis, is better known in its upper course, thanks to
the numerous expeditions made in this direction by the French forces, and to the
reports of pilgrims and traders. After receiving the streams flowing from Figuig
and from the Ish district on the Oran frontier, the Guir flows under various names
in the direction of the Twat oasis. But beyond this point it is unknown whether
it joins the Draa, loses itself in a land-locked basin, or effects a junction with the
Niger towards the western extremity of its great bend towards the north.
Climate of Marocco.
Marocco is entirely comprised within the zone of the trade winds ; but the
normal play of the atmospheric currents is modified by the Atlas highlands, by the
position of the coimtry at the entrance of the Mediterranean, and the neighbour-
hood of the Sahara. In summer the land and sea breezes alternate daily along
the coast, while the prevailing winds come from the south. In winter, that is,
from October to February, north-west winds are very frequent, bearing with them
a considerable amount of moisture, which is precipitated in abundant showers on
the slopes of the Atlas. But throughout the southern regions the trade winds are
predominant. As these blow parallel Avith the axis of the main ranges, the aerial
current follows, so to say, a channel already created by the Atlantic slope of
Mauritania. For about two himdred and seventy days in the year the polar winds
from the north and north-east prevail at Mogador ; while for nearly two months,
usually in winter, the opposite currents from the west and south-west descend from
the higher to the lower atmospheric regions.
Under the influence of the trade winds and marine breezes, the climate of the
FLOEA. 861
Atlantic seaboard is generally distinguished by an almost complete absence of
extreme variations. Few points on the surface of the globe enjoy a more uniform
temperature than Mogador, where the oscillations recorded during a series of nine
years scarcely exceeded 6° or 7° F. This remarkable equability explains the rarity
of diseases of the chest. Consumption is almost unknown in this part of the
continent, whose cKmate is also found to be highly beneficial to European invalids.
In the interior, where the marine breezes are but slightly felt, the variations of
temperature increase in proportion to the distance from the seaboard, while on the
south coast the cKmate is influenced by the proximity of the Sahara with its
intense heats during the day and active radiation at night. Altogether, Marocco
is disposed in three climatic zones by the relief and aspect of the land. In the
north the Moluya basin, the Rif , and peninsula of Tangier, belong to the Mediter-
ranean Tell, presenting nearly the same phenomena as the corresponding parts of
Algeria ; in the centre and south, the main Atlas range separates two distinct
regions, one exposed to the Atlantic, the other to the Sahara atmospheric
influences.
The rainfall is on the whole far more abundant than in Eastern Mauritania, and
the Atlas highlands are often visited by heavy snowstorms. Everywhere along
the seaboard the atmosphere is saturated with moisture ; but showers are rare on
the southern slopes turned towards the Sahara. The coastlands are also frequently
visited by those showers of red dust, which are now known to consist mainly of
silicious animalculae wafted by the trade winds from the South American llanos
across the Atlantic.
Flora.
To the varied climate of Marocco corresponds a no less diversified flora, which,
however, belongs mainly to the Mediterranean zone. Of the 248 local genera,
all, with a solitary exception, are found in one or another of the regions border-
ing the great inland sea. Fully a third of the species occur even in the British
Isles and Central Europe. On the other hand, very few species are common also
to the African floras south of the great desert. Thus in the products of its soil, no
less than in its physical constitution. Western Mauritania maintains its European
character. Physical geography was consequently in complete harmony with the
poKtical divisions when Mauritania Tingitana was by Diocletian attached to the
Iberian peninsula.
The vegetation of Marocco most resembles that of Spain, although the analogy
is not so complete as was at one time supposed by botanists. Of 631 species
collected in the Atlas highlands, as many as 181 are not foimd in Spain, and the
divergence increases as we ascend towards the higher regions of the Atlas. The
contrast with the Canaries, Madeira, and the Azores is almost complete. Most of
the plants common to the islands and mainland are such as are elsewhere also
foimd diffused throughout vast regions with the most varied climates. Of the
1,627 flowering plants hitherto enimierated in Marocco, not more than fifteen
AFRICA I. h h
362 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
belon"" also to the archipelagoes. Thus the botanical evidence alone suflBces to
show that, not^\-ith standing their proximity to the mainland, the Canaries are of
independent origin.
liather more than ten of its vegetable species are altogether peculiar to Marocco,
and are mostly confined to the Atlas uplands. In this central region the few
indio-enous species have become specialised by the process of gradually adapting
themselves to the en\-ironment. Towards the summits of the Atlas have also token
refuge the European species, which appear in isolated groups on the crests of the
Ethiopian ranges. Such is a variety of the pine, which emits a pleasant odour, and
which is employed in the manufacture of costly cabinet pieces. On the other hand,
many of the Sahara species have penetrated far northwards, being found not only
on the southern slopes of the Anti-Atlas, but also in the Sus basin and along the
seaboard as far as the "Wed Tensif t. Such are the gummiferous acacias and several
large euphorbioe, also yielding valuable gums. The date-pahn, which may be
included in the number of tropical species that have migrated northwards, grows in
the Tangier district on the Mediterranean coast, but bears no fruit, and even at
Mogador the crop is of inferior quality. But the dates of the Draa basin are said
by the natives to be unrivalled in flavour even by those of the Jerid oasis itself.
The dwarf -palm, so common in Algeria, is somewhat rare in Marocco, being found in
thickets only in the proAonce of Haha, round about Mogador.
One of the most remarkable of the indigenous species is the argania sideroxylon,
a tree which has often been compared to the olive, and which is found only in the
southern districts beyond the Wed Tensift. It grows in the most arid soil, and
needs no irrigation. All domestic animals except the horse and ass eat its berries
eagerl}', while from the kernel the natives extract a peculiar oil, disagreeable to
the European palate. Its wood is extremely hard, and but for its excessively slow
growth the argania, of which mention is first made by Leo Africanus, might be
successfully cultivated in Algeria. Another indigenous plant, found nowhere else,
and described by Jackson and Leard, yields the gum " ammoniac " of commerce
— a resin with a pungent odour, used in Egypt and Arabia for the purpose of
fumigation.
Fauna.
The Marocco fauna differs little from that of Algeria, at least so far as it has
liitherto been studied. Large camivora, such as the lion and panther, appear to be
confined mainly to the Rif highlands, towards the Algerian frontier. The bear,
extinct in Algeria, has not yet disappeared ; rabbits swarm in the Tangier
peninsula, diminishing gradually southwards to the Bu-Rcgrag, beyond which they
are not found. Monkeys are rare, being restricted to the northern regions and to
the single species which survives also on the Rock of Gibraltar. "Wild boars,
justly dreaded by the ]jeasantry, infest all the tliickets. The better classes have
the curious practice of keeping them in their stables, in order to conjure the evil
spirits, and induce them to pass from their horses into the " impure animal." In
INHABITANTS OF MAEOCCO— THE BEEBEES. 363
the southern steppes on the verge of the desert, the ostrich still abounds, and here
also several varieties of the gazelle are hunted, less for their flesh than for the
so-called hezoard, a peculiar concretion often found in their stomachs and valued as
a powerful amulet. The dead cetaceans stranded on the coast are also opened by
the fishermen in search of fragments of grey amber.
The upland valleys of the Atlas range, with its almost European climate, are
well suited for breeding all our domestic animals, as well as for the cultivation of
aU the plants peculiar to the temperate zone. The waters abound in turtles, and
the river estuaries are frequented especially by the sabal, a species of salmon, highly
prized for its delicate flavour. The oceanic fauna differs in other respects little
from that of the West Indian seas, the nautilus, flying-fish, and much-dreaded
hammer-headed shark being found on both sides of the Atlantic. The exploration
of the abysses off the Marocco coast, sounded to a depth of 2,800 fathoms, has
revealed to the naturaKsts of the Talisman a multitude of new species of fishes,
crustaceans, molluscs, worms, and sponges.
Inhabitants of Marocco — The Berbers.
As in the rest of Mauritania, the population of Marocco still remains funda-
mentally Berber, this element having, since the time of the Phoenicians, always
maintained the preponderance. The successive conquering races, even the Arabs,
who have remained masters on the plains and in the large towns, have succeeded
only in driving the natives to the upland valleys, without acquiring a numerical
superiority in the country. At present the proportion of Berbers is estimated at
about two-thirds of the whole population, and especially in the highland districts,
remote from the town and seaboard, they form the almost exclusive element.
At the same time this general expression, Berber, applied collectively to all the
inhabitants not of distinctly Semitic or Negro descent, by no means implies a
community of origin. On the contrary, many different races have probably con-
tributed to the formation of the aborigines, and Iberian tribes are even supposed at
one time to have occupied the slopes of the Atlas. As in other parts of Barbary,
especially TripoHtana and East Algeria, megaliths have been found in various
parts of Marocco, in every respect similar to the dolmens, menhirs, cromlechs, and
suchlike remains in Britain and Brittany. The finest monoKth hitherto discovered
is that of Mzora, standing on the eastern edge of a plateau, whence a view is
commanded of the Tetuan highlands. This menhir, which is over 20 feet high, is
known as the Uted, or " tent-pole."
The Imazighen, or Berbers of Marocco, who comprise several tribes or con-
federations bearing the same name as those of Algeria (Shawia, Beraber, Zenaga
or Saheja, Guezzula, &c.), are divided into four perfectly distinct groups, occupy-
ing separate territories and characterised by different tribal customs. Those of the
north, who hold the Rif highlands, the peninsula of Tangier, and most of the hilly
district bounded southwards bv the course of the Sebu, take the generic name of
864 NORTH- WEST AFRICA.
Akbail or Kebail, that is " Kabyles," like the Jurjura highlanders. The frontier
town of their domain on the maritime slope of the Atlas is Sefru, a short distance
south of Fez. North of this place the term Akbail is appKed to all natives of
Berber race, while south of it all caU themselves Shleuh, Shluh, or Shellaha. This
latter appellation comprises under various forms all the settled Imazighen of white
race who inhabit the upland Atlas valleys. But in South Marocco, on both slopes
of the mountains, and in the Saharian oases, the peasantry, who resemble .the
Fiar. 164. — A Taxgike Arab.
Algerian Ruaghas in the dark colour of their complexion, are also classed amongst
the Imazighen, and are collectively known by the name of Haratin.
On the southern slope of the Atlas every village presents a mixture of SheUaha
and Haratin, in wliich the proportion of the latter element increases gradually
from north to south — that is, from the upper Moluya to the lower Draa. Owing to
their lighter complexion, the Shellaha regard themselves as superior to the Haratin,
and in marriage contracts account is usually taken of this difference, the price of a
INHABITANTS OF MAEOCCO— THE BEEBEES.
365
fair being higher than that of a dark bride. Nevertheless the Hartaniat vomen
are often distinguished by their beauty, most of them having lovely and expressive
eyes, and in their youth bright features eombiued with an extremely graceful
carriage.
In the oases a Hartani is seldom elected chief of the tribe, this honour being
usually reserved for the white Imazighen. Like the Algerian Shawia and
Kab}'les, many of the Marocco Imazighen are distinguished by light hair and blue
Figr. 165. — Aeab WoiiA^ of Tangiee.
eyes. But in the central and southern .regions this fair t^-pe appears to be
extremely rare, except in some of the southern hilly districts. It seems to be most
frequently met in the Eif, that is, the northern coastlands that have been most
frequently occupied by invaders or immigrants from the Iberian peninsula. Hence
M. Faidherbe is inclined to regard them as the more or less mixed descendants
of the race which raised the great monolithic monuments in North Africa.
The Tamazight (Shluh or Shellaha) language is spoken by the great majority
366 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
of the ^Marocco Berbers. It is even much better preserved in the extreme west
than in other parts of Mauritania, and old manuscripts of the Koran transcribed
in Berber characters are said still to exist in the Rif highlands. In nearly all the
northern tribes the women and even the children understand and even speak
Arabic. But in the hills and oases of the Saharian slope certain connnunities
liWno- ill secluded districts remote from the great trade routes speak Tamazight
alone, employing interpreters, chiefly Jews, in their intercourse with the Arabs.
On the other hand, the Beni-Hassen of the Tetuan uplands, and some other tribes
of imdoubted Berber origin, have completely forgotten their mother-tongue, and
now speak Arabic exclusively.
Amongst all these Imazighen, scattered over a vast territory, varying in com-
plexion from fair to dark, and speaking different languages, a great diversity of
tj'pes, habits, and customs also naturally prevails. In some tribes the women
have preserved the practice of tattooing ; in others they cover the face with a black
veil at the sight of strangers, or else turn their back on the wayfarer ; but, as a
rule, they walk abroad unveiled and with a bold carriage. The practice of stuffing
young girls with paste-balls, to give them the corpulence so much admired in
Marocco, is common to most of the urban communities, and even to many nomad
peoples.
The dress varies with every tribe, and at a distance the clan to which strangers
belong is easily recognised by their costume and arms. Usually men and women
wear only a single haik woven of wool or cotton, and attached to the shoulders
with clasps or knots. Nearly all the natives have bow legs : a feature due to the
way children are carried pickaback by their mothers, wrapped in a fold of the
haik.
Except the nomads that roam the plains at the foot of the Anti-Atlas and
Bani ranges, and the semi-nomads in the north and south, whose movable straw
dwellings resemble beehives, nearly all the Imazighen live in stone houses variously
grouped in the different villages. On the southern slope of the Atlas they are
disposed in the form of ksurs, or strongholds, like the fortified villages of the
border ranges in South Orania. Elsewhere each family dwells apart, the houses
of the community being scattered irregularly over the hillside, like those of the
Pyrcnean Basques.
With the exception of a few tribes near the large towns, the bulk of the Berber
population may be said to have remained practically independent, although every
phase of transition occurs, from complete submission to absolute autonomy. Some
of the Imazighen pay the imposts voluntarily, but most of them do so only under
pressure, often even escaping to their allies, and leaving nothing but empty houses
in the hands of the taxgatherers. The oppression of the Sultan's government is
found on the whole more intolerable than tribal warfare and the savage freedom
enjoyed by the independent communities. Nevertheless, some of the more powerful
tribes consent to receive a kaid, that is, a sort of envoy from the Sultan, who is
respected if upright, but usually merely tolerated as a stranger. The dependence
of some clans is of a purely spiritual character, while the autonomous tribes often
THE INHABITANTS OF MAEOCCO— THE BERBERS. 367
play the part of allies, entering into treaties with the Emperor on the footing of
political equality. Lastly some of the groups, such as the Riata, who hold the
hills on the route between Fez and Tlemcen, maintain no relations of any sort with
the Government. " They have neither god nor sidtan," as it is said, "but only
powder." They accept no command from sheikh or chief, but act " every man for
himself with his gun."
Like the Jurjura Kabyles, the Marocco Berbers regulate all their aflfairs in the
anfaliz, that is, the jemaa, or public assembly. The tribes are merely so many
large families, which break readily into fragments, and unite again in fresh groups
according to their temporary interests or caprice. Even traditional codes of law
are rare amongst the communes, which, as a rule, yield obedience to nothing
except the decisions of the assembly when unanimously accepted by the heads of
families.
Such is the prevailing system of government amongst the tribes occupying the
maritime slope of the Atlas. On the opposite side the populations are more
compactly grouped, in order the better to resist the attacks of the Saharian
nomads. Here the villages are formally confederated into nations, which by
means of delegates act in concert for the common defence. Other tribes, less
careless of their autonomy, accept the position of vassals, recognising the supre-
macy of a chief, or of some more powerful tribe. Some elect a temporary chief,
usually for a year, and as a rule the authority of the sheikhs is always precarious.
If wealthy and of good birth, they hold their ground, but even then seldom succeed
in neutralising the influence of the assembly, which meets and issues a sovereign
decree on all weighty occasions.
The Jews generally serve to maintain commercial relations between the tribes
in this universal state of disorganisation. But despised and hated as they are,
they might run the risk of being killed at the entrance of every village, were they
not protected by the collective will of the commune, or by the pledged word of
some influential person. Yet there are tribes which will never admit a Jew, and
he has consequently to pass through their territory in disguise, at the imminent
peril of his life. The mezrag, or passport, corresponding to the anaya in Kabylia,
can always be had for a consideration ; but the payment once made, the protector
becomes responsible for the life and welfare of his guest. In some cases the
mezrag of a rich merchant or of a whole tribe may be purchased for a lifetime ; it
then takes the name of dehiha, or " sacrifice," because it was formerly the custom
of the suppliant to immolate a sheep on the threshold of the man whose patronage
he sought.
By means of these agencies trade might be freely carried on from one end of
Marocco to the other, but for certain marauding tribes which recognise no safe-
conduct. The hills in the very neighbourhood of Fez are occupied by the Guerwan
Berbers, who grant no mezrag, but allow travellers to pass through their territory
on payment of a heavy, siun exacted by armed force. The Din-Bellals of the
southern slope of the Atlas midertake to escort caravans ; but if their offer is
declined they lie in ambush to plunder the passing convoys. If the travellers are
8G8
NORTH-WEST AFEICA.
poor or members of a weak tribe, they are merely stripped and sent on their way
naked but iminjured ; if, on the contrary, they belong to any powerful tribe
whose vengeance might be feared, they are killed right out to prevent the news
of the attack from spreading, the duty of vendetta being sacred amongst the
Marocco Berbers.
The Imazighen are no better instructed in the dogmas and practices of the
faith they profess than are their Algerian kindred. The coast Arabs have even
' Fig. 166. — Arab CAiiEL-DEivEE.
.' ^
preserved some of the observances of the hated Paimi. The women bear the sign
of the cross tattooed on their person, and in difficult labour invoke the aid of the
Virgin ^lury. A few Latin words survive in the language, and the Roman
calendar is still in use concurrently with the Arab. The marabuts who recite
verses from the Koran are mostly of Arab descent ; but their influence varies with
the tribes, being jealously watched in some places, in others venerated as saints
and implicitly obeyed. Some of their convents arc regarded as sanctuaries, in
THE AEABS— THE JEWS AND NEGROES. 369
whicli culprits find a safe refuge. Many tribes refuse to recognise the obligation
of making the pilgrimage to Mecca, although there are others, more zealous, who
send yearly a number of devotees to visit the tomb of the Prophet, With the
religious pilgrims are also associated a constantly increasing number of emigrants,
who seek employment as labourers or harvesters in Algeria and Tunis.
* The Arabs.
The Arabs of the rural districts and the Moors of the towns, in whom th^
Berber, Arab, and European elements are diversely intermingled, are descended
either from the conquering tribes from Arabia or from the Moors expelled ^rom
Spain. Those living in the midst of the Shluhs and of the Haratins in the southern
districts, take the general name of Arabs, as if they represented the race in a
pre-eminent sense. Amongst these marauding tribes of the ' southern oases are
found the finest women in Marocco, remarkable alike for their perfectly regular
features and fair complexion. Altogether, those who may be classed as Arabs
number over a million. In the towns they are in a decided majority, and all now
lead settled Kves, except the nomads of the southern districts on the verge of the
desert. Hence the contrast existing in Algeria between the Berber peasant and
the Arab nomad prevails in Marocco to a very sKght extent.
The Arabs of Marocco are noted for their sociable disposition. In almost every
village, and even in the camping -grounds, they assemble in the building or the
tent used as a mosque, bringing each his contribution and feasting in common.
The large number of " saints " is also a remarkable feature of the Marocco Semites.
Whole tribes consist of Shorfa, or descendants of the Prophet, and in Marocco
have originated nearly all the religious orders of Mauritania, notably the Aissawa
and Derkawa confraternities. Next to Arabia, Marocco is regarded by true
Mohammedans as the most illustrious of all lands. The reminiscences of its former
power and culture impart to its inhabitants a special degree of prestige in the
eyes of all the inhabitants of the oases between Mauritania and Egypt. While
the eastern Mussulmans pray for the Caliph of Stambul, those of the west invoke
the benedictions of Allah on the head of the Sultan of Marocco.
The Jews and Negroes.
Next to the Berbers and Ai-abs, the most numerous ethnical group are the
Jews, descended for the most part from those expelled from Spain. They call
themselves Guerush Castilla, or " Exiles from Castille," and at solemn oflBcial
weddings the Rabbins still use formulas concluding with the words : " All
according to the usage of Castille." Those settled in the seaports north of the
Wed Tensift still usually speak Spanish, while those of Fez and Mcknes have
adopted Arabic. According to most authorities, the Marocco Jews number over
one hundred thousand, although Rohlfs is of opinion that this figure is more
370
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
tbau three times too high. The handsomest women in Marocco are said to be
the Jewesses of Meknes, and the term Mekuasia is now applied to all women
remarkable for their personal charms.
The Xeo-ro element is also represented in everj^ part of western Mauritania,
where, according to Rohlfs, there are as many as fifty thousand Sudanese blacks of
pure stock between Tarudant and Tangier. Many half-castes are also found in
the families of the upper classes in the large towns, and the reigning family itself
is partly of Negro blood. But in the rural districts interminglings of this sort are
If ss frequent, and never occur amongst the Berbers on the northern slope of the
Atlas.
The Haussas, Bambaras, Fulahs, and other Negro populations in Marocco are
constantly recruited by the organised slave trade carried on through the caravan
trafiio with Sudan. Here they are usually purchased with blocks of salt, whence
the term yemt-d-melha, that is, " bought for salt," often applied contemptuously
to slaves and freedmen. In the Marocco bazaars the slaves are generally sold by
auction, like any other " live stock," the vendor guaranteeing them free of
" vicious habits," and the buyer causing them to be examined by the " veterinary
surgeon." The price varies from sixteen or eighteen shillings to twenty pounds,
according to age, sex, strength, or health.
The European element is represented by a few thousand strangers settled in the
seaports, and a few hundred French and Spanish renegades in Fez, Meknes,
Marrakesh, and other inland towns.
Topography.
A portion of north-east Marocco is comprised in the hydrographic system of
Algeria, the town and district of Ujda being situated in the basin of the Tafna
river. Ujda, which lies at the foot of the Khudriat-el-Khadra hill, in the plain of
Angad, is a mere aggregate of small houses surrounded by olive groves, doing
some trade across the border. Thanks to its proximity to the Algerian frontier, it
ranks as an imperial garrison town, depending directly on the Sultan's Government.
About six miles to the west, on the banks of the Islay, a headstream of the Tafna,
was fought the famous battle of Islay, August 14, 1844, which placed the Marocco
Government at the mercy of France, and which was followed by the treaty of
Tangier, leaving to the Sultan nearly the whole of the debated territory east of
the ^loluya.
The eastern affluents of the Moluya are partly occupied by the warKke and
independent Beni-Mgill Berber tribe, whose chief village is Bulayul, which lies
over 3,000 feet above the sea on one of the torrents forming the Upper Moluya.
Lower down in the same valley is the less powerful Berber confederation of the
Aitu- Fella, who in return for their recognition of the Sultan's authority are
privileged to levy a sort of black-mail on travellers passing through their territory.
Their ksar, or chief village, is Ksabi-esh-Shorfa, inhabited, as its name indicates,
DEBDU— KASBAH-EL-AIUN.
371
by descendants of tlie Prophet, and situated on a plain wliere converge the upper
branches of the Moluya. Ksabi (Eksebi) marks the linguistic parting-line between
Arabic and Berber, the latter being spoken exclusively on one side, in the direction
of the Atlas, the former prevailing on the other, in the direction of the plains.
Debdu — Kasbah-el-Aiun.
■»
The small town of Debdu lies, not on the Moluya, but on an eastern affluent on
the route leading to the upland plateaux. Immediately above the town rises a
Fig. 167. — Ujda, Isly, aito the Angad Plain.
Scale 1 : 430,000.
6 Miles.
vertical blufE crowned with a minaret and a dismantled fortress. Beyond it the
ground still rises through a series of escarped terraces to the plateau of Gada,
which is clothed with one of the finest forests in Marocco. Debdu, which consists
of about four hundi-ed earthen houses, is the only place in the empire where the
Jews are in a majority. All are engaged in trade, their commercial relation
extending eastwards to Tlemcen in Algeria, westwards to Fez through the Taza
route, and down the Lower Moluya valley to the Spanish coast-town of Melilla.
In the neighbouring hill? is bred a race of mules famous throughout Western
Mauritania.
West of Debdu the Moluya flows through a series of mountain gorges down to
872 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
the extensive plain of Tafrata, which, when clothed with verdure in spring, is
>-isited bv the Huara Arabs. Here the Moluya receives its chief affluent, the Wed
Za, which is a perennial stream fed by the Wed Sharf and other torrents from the
upland plateaux south of the Tell. The riverain population have their chief market,
not in the valley, but farther east on the Angad pkin, on an eminence crowned
with the kubba of Sidi-Melluk. Aroimd this famous shrine are grouped the houses
of Arab and Jewish merchants trading with Ujda and Tlemcen. The village is
usually known by the name of Kasbah-el-A'iun, or " Castle of the Springs," from
the numerous wells that have been sunk at the foot of the hill.
The semi-independent Berber tribes of the district are kept in awe by a
detachment of about a hundred and fifty regular troops stationed at this frontier
outpost. Of these tribes the most powerful is that of the Beni-Iznaten (the Beni-
Snassen of the neighbouring French Algerians), who comprise several clans
originally from the, district of Nemours. These irreconcilable foes of the Christians
occupy the isolated mass of hills between the Angad desert and the lower course of
the Moluya.
Jaferin Islands — Melilla.
No important town has been founded on the low-lying plain through which the
Moluya flows seawards, and here the nearest military position is that of the Jaferin
(Zaffarinc, Zafrin, Shaffarinas) Islands, the Tres Insulae of the ancient geographers.
The only importance attaching to these barren rocks is due to the shelter they
afford the shipping at anchor in the roadstead, and to their strategic position over
against the Moluya Valley, and not far from the Algerian frontier. During the
first years of the conquest the French had intended to occupy the archipelago ; but
when they had finally decided on taking this step in 1849, they were anticipated
by a few hours by the Spaniards. The group is now strongly fortified, forming a
military outpost of the stronghold of Melilla, some 30 miles farther west.
Melilla, the 3Ilila of the natives, occupies the site of the PhoDnician city of
Ru'isadir, whose name is perpetuated by the neighbouring headland of Ras-ed-Deir
(Raseddir), the Cape Tres Forcas of the Spaniards. The town stands on a terrace
at the foot of a steep cliff crowned by the Spanish fortress of Rosario, which has
been raised on the foundations of other citadels that have here succeeded each other
for a period of three thousand years. Some shelter is afforded to the shipping by
an inlet penetrating to the south-west of the fortress, possibly the work of the
Pha^nicians, who constructed similar havens at Carthago and Utica. Melilla, whose
fortifications were half destroyed by an earthquake in 1848, has been in the
possession of the Spaniards since the year 1496, and is now connected by a regular
line of steamers with the mother country. Some 30 miles off the coast stands the
barren islet of Alhoran, which is also a Spanish stronghold.
On the semi-circular Rif coast, between Ras-cd-Deir and Tetuan, stand two other
military stations, AllmcemaH and Pcf/on do Vclez, which have been held by Spain
for over three hundred years. Both are little more than penal settlements, occupied
[r"
I ' j!
m^ I :! I i:li': iil
r il/'ii!
ill ill
iiiiiilLiliiiiilill
TETUAN— CEUTA.
373
by convicts from Spain and by small garrisons. Facing Penon de Yelez (Yelez de la
Gomera) are the remains of the Eoman city of Badis, which in mediseval times was
regarded as the port of Fez on the Mediterranean. This spot woidd be the most
convenient landing-place for travellers proceeding from the Rif coast to the Sebu
Valley ; but no carriage roads have been opened across the intervening hills, which
Fig. 168.— Tetuan.
Scale 1 : 200,000.
5°a4-
V/estof breen»vich
5'iS
JjeptiiS.
Oto32
Feet.
32 to 80
Feet.
EC to 160
Feet.
160 Feet and
upwards.
3 Miles.
are still held by independent Berber tribes. In one of the upland valleys stands
the town of Sheshaiven, surrounded by vineyards, and in the neighbourhood is the
mother-house of the religious order of the Derkawas.
Tetuan — Ceuta.
On the Mediterranean seaboard the chief city of the empire is Tetuan, the
Titmcan of the Moors, and the Tettaicen of the Berbers, that is, the " Place of
Sprino-s." The name is fully justified by the numerous and copious streamlets
874
NOETH-WEST .AFRICA.
flowing from the surrounding amphitheatre of hills, and watering the neighbouring
gardens and orange groves. The town, which stands on a terrace some 200 feet
high, is commanded by a citadel, and encircled by a lofty rampart flanked with
towers, within which a second enclosure contains the Mellah, or Jewish quarter.
The bar, which is accessible only to light craft, is also defended by a fortified
custom-house. Nearly all the wealth of the place is in the hands of the Jews, who
constitute about a fourth of the whole population, and who here enjoy a certain c
degree of autonomy. Hence Tetuan is regarded as one of the centres of the
Israelites, who own all the bazaars, and carry on an extensive trade with the
Fig. 169.— Ceuta.
Scale 1 : 90,000.
Deptiis.
Oto32
Feet.
32 to 80
Feet.
80 to 160
Feet.
IfiO Feet and
upwards.
3,300 Yards.
surrounding regions, through Ceuta, Tangier, and Gibraltar. The exports are
chiefly oranges and mnhaj/a, a kind of brandy distilled from grapes. The local
industries, largely in the hands of immigrants from Algeria, comprise earthenware
and the other wares required to meet the usual wants of Mussulman populations.
Peopled to a large extent by ^fudejares — that is, by Moors expelled from Granada
and Castillo — it has often had to resist the attacks of the Spaniards, by whom it was
plundered in the fifteenth century. A hundred years later, its corsairs held the
surrounding waters, carrj'ing off thousands of captives from Andalusia, while
trading peacefully with the English, Dutch, and Venetians. In 1564 the port was
TANGIER. 375
destroyed by Philip II., and after a decisive victory in the neighbourhood, Tetuan
was again seized by the Spaniards in 1859, but after long negotiations finally
restored to the Sultan.
The neighbouring town of Ceuta, however, has been held by Spain for the last
three hundred years, although on one occasion, towards the end of the seventeenth
and beginning of the following century, besieged or blockaded by the natives for a
, space of no less than six-and-twenty years. Although a " free port," Ceuta is no
longer a great centre of trade, as in Mussulman times ; the Christian stronghold,
defended by a triple Hne of ramparts, and bristling with guns and chevaux de frke^
is carefully avoided by traders from the interior. Hence, from the commercial
aspect, the greatest contrast exists between this " African Gribraltar," and that on
the Spanish mainland, both of which otherwise resemble each other in their
geological structure, their peninsular form, and their strategical position on either
side of the intervening strait. A fort commands the town, but i,s itself commanded
by the heights of the interior, some of which are occupied by Spanish defensive
works. Hence, apart from the opposition of EngKsh diplomacy, it will never be
possible, except at a vast expenditure, to transform Ceuta into a really formidable
rival of Gibraltar.
Tangier.
On the African side of the strait, between Ceuta and Tangier, there are no towns,
Kasr-es-Serir being now a mere mass of shapeless ruins. All the trade hi the
surrounding districts has been diverted to the half -European city of Tangier, which
is already within the influence of the Atlantic tides, here rising to a height of over
eight feet. Tangier, the Tanja of the natives, is the ancient Tinge, that is, the
** Lagoon," which is fabled to have sprung from the ground with Antaeus. Founded,
according to tradition, before the dawn of history. Tinge became, under the Romans,
capital of Mauritania Tingitana, answering to the present northern division of
Marocco. But at that time it does not appear to have covered a larger surface than
at present. The so-called " Old Tangier," whose ruins are seen to the south-east,
was a mediaeval Arab town unconnected with the Roman Tinge. Its position, on a
semicircular bay at the entrance of the strait, and offering some shelter from the
western gales, must at all times have secured for this place a certain degree of
commercial importance. The Venetians were here long received as guests, \x\ii\e
the Portuguese, wishing to enter as conquerors, were several times repulsed. They
at last seized it in 1471, and for two hundred years it remained in European hands,
the Spaniards succeeding to the Portuguese, and the English to the Spaniards.
Under the British rule no expense was spared in strengthening the fortifications
and improving the harbour works. But the incessant attacks of the Moors, the
lack of supplies, the difiiculty of provisioning the place, at last exhausted the
patience of the English, who, in 1684, evacuated Tangier, blowing up the piers in
order to destroy the port.^ Twenty years afterwards they seized Gibraltar, which
not only enjoyed the same military advantages, but also presented an insular
position more easily defensible.
376
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
Thus abandoned as a military station, Tangier soon began to attract traders
from everj- quarter, and has now become a chief centre of the exchanges with the
European seaports. The foreign envoys to the Sultan's court generally reside here,
as does also the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in order the more easily to maintain
relations with thie European powers. Tangier has thus become a sort of capital, as
it is fast becoming a European town, with its new houses, landing-stage, workshops,
journals, batteries, neighbouring lighthouse, and suburban villas.
Fig. 170.— Tangiee.
Scale 1 : 100,000.
depths.
Otol6
Feet.
liJto32
Feet.
32 to 80
Feet.
80 to 160
Feet.
3,300 Yards.
160 Feet and
upwards.
In its outward aspect Tangier bears some resemblance to Algiers, being like it
disposed in amphitheatrical form on the slope of a hill, which is crowned by the
embattled walls of a citadel. A considerable traffic is maintained in the thorough-
fares leading from the port to the gate of the upper town. Although the harbour
is too shallow to admit large vessels, which are obliged to anchor in the offing, a
large trade is carried on, especially with Gibraltar, which is chiefly provisioned from
this ])lace. Wool, raw and dressed hides, and other produce are also shipped in
exchange for hardware, cotton goods, tea, sugar, chandlery, and other foreign
LAEASH— TAZA. 877
merchandise. Invalids also resort in considerable numbers to Tangier, which, as a
health-resort, has few rivals, even on the Mediterranean seaboard.
Larash — Taza.
On the Atlantic coast, some 24 miles south of Cape Spartel, formerly stood the
Roman city of Zilis, which afterwards became the Azila {Ar-Zeila, Ar-Zila) of the
Arabs, now a mere collection of hovels, interspersed with some Portuguese structures.
About 15 miles farther south stands El-Araish, or Larash, the first trading-place on
this coast. Larash, present capital of the province of Gharb, dates at least from
the ninth century, although it long remained an obscure village, rising to
commercial prosperity only imder the Portuguese and Spanish administration. Its
re-conquest by Sultan Mulai Ismail in 1769 is one of the great events in the annals
of Marocco. The garrison, 3,200 strong, was partly exterminated, partly reduced
to slavery for a period of two years, and one hundred and eighty guns fell into the
hands of the Mussulmans. Since that time Larash has successfully resisted the
several naval demonstrations of the French in 1785, the Austrians in 1829, and the
Spaniards in 1860.
The entrance to the port of Larash, which lies on the south side of the estuary
of the Wed-el-Khus (Lukkos), is obstructed by a bar inaccessible to vessels of over
a hundred and fifty or two hundred tons. Nevertheless it is much frequented
by Portuguese fishing-smacks, and by ships, especially from Marseilles, which here
take in cargoes of wool, beans, and other local produce, chiefly in exchange for £ugar.
The Libyan, Phoenician, and Roman city, to which Larash has succeeded, has
not entirely disappeared. On a headland overgrown with brushwood, and com-
manding two bends of the river about 2 J miles east of the present town, are visible
the remains of Phoenician walls constructed of huge blocks like those of Arad, and
extended by Roman ramparts of smaller dimensions. These are the Lix, or Lixus
lines, now known to the Arabs by the name of Chemmish. In the alluvial deposits
of an inlet at the foot of the hill may still be detected the traces of a port large
enough to accommodate a few vessels. But none of the marshy peninsulas enclosed
by the Lukkos can possibly have been the " garden of the Hesperides " mentioned
by the ancient writers. Tissot seeks for their site in an islet now connected with
the mainland through a winding in the bed of the river. During the last two
thousand years the whole form of the estuary seems to have been completely
modified. Some menhirs and other megaliths visible farther east on the route from
Tangier to Ksar-el-Kebir date probably from a still more remote epoch.
The famous town of Kasr-el-Kebir, or the "Great Castle," stands like its outport,
Larash, on the banks of the Lukkos, in a marshy district often under water. The
town is surrounded by vineyards, olive and orange groves, and the neighbouring
hiUs afford pasturage for numerous herds of cattle and flocks of sheep. Kasr-el-
Kebir, which notwithstanding its name is not enclosed by ramparts, is built of brick,
and stands for the most p^rt on ancient foimdations. Here Tissot has found the
only Greek inscriptions hitherto discovered in Marocco. The battle known in
history as that of Alkazar-Kebir, which in 1578 put an end to the Portuguese
AFRICA T. C C
378
NOETH-WEST AFEICA.
power in Marocco, appears to have been fought, not at the place bearing its name,
but 6 miles to the south-east of Larash, on the banks of the Wed-el-Makhzen, a
tributary of the Lukkos.
South of Larash the monotonous seaboard follows an unbroken line for 90 miles
to the mouth of the Sebu. In the upper part of this river basin lies the central
market to\\-n of Taza, at an altitude of 2,750 feet, and near the depression between
the Rif highlands and the Atlas system. Thus commanding the line of commu-
nication between the Sebu and Moluya basins — that is, between West Marocco and
f Algeria — Taza occupies the most important strategical position in the empire. It
belongs officially to the Sultan, although the garrison troops here maintained by
Fig. 171. — El-Araish ajtd Chemmish.
Scale 1 : 75,000,
0to32
Feet.
Depths.
32 to 64
Feet.
64 Feet and
upwards.
2,200 Yards.
the Government are practically at the mercy of the powerful Riata tribe, who hold
the hills north and south of the town, and who are the true masters of the whole
district. When Foucauld visited the place in 1883, the whole population, worn
out by the oppressive exactions of this tribe, and hopeless of any further help from
the Sultan, " were sighing for the happy day when the French would come to their
rescue." Nevertheless, a little trade is done with Fez, the coast towns, and the
Moluya district, through the intervention of the detcste'd Riatas, who cultivate the
hemp and tobacco which supply narcotics to Taza and the other towns of North
Marocco.
FEZ.
379
Fez.
Fez, the capital most frequently visited by tlie Sultan, and the largest city in
the empire, occupies an advantageous geographical position about the centre of the
depression separating the Rif from the Atlas highlands. It also lies on the natural
route which skirts the western foot of the Atlas range, so that its basin is intersected
• by the two great historic highways of Western Mauritania, The district enjoys
the further advantages of a fertile and well-watered soil and pleasant scenery,
diversified with rich open plains and densely wooded heights. The city, encircled*
by an amphitheatre of hills, occupies a terrace of conglomerate about 650 feet high,
divided into secondary sections by numerous ravines. The Wed- el-Fez, rising in
a rocky cirque a little to the south-west, and fed by innumerable springs, six miles
Fig. 172. — Fez axd Neighbouehood.
Scale 1 : 300,000.
West" o'f Greenwicf-i
4-°5C'
6 Miles.
below the town effects a junction with the Sebu, which is here spanned by one of
the few stone bridges found in Marocco. Seen from the bluffs crowned with ruins
which encirclQ it on the south, north, and west, Fez presents a charming prospect,
" emerging like a white island above the dark green sea of its vast gardens."
Above the irregular surface of the terraces rise the gilded summits of its minarets,
the lofty walls of the citadel, and the gKttering roof of the great mosque.
Fez is divided into two distinct towns, each with its single or double enclosure
flanked by towers and buttresses. To the west lies Fez-el-Bali, or " Old Fez," still
comprising the greater part of the urban population ; to the east Fez-el- Jedid, or
" New Fez," standing on tfie highest terrace, and towards the north connected with
the old town by the redoubts of the kasbah. Immediately cast of the palace in
Fez-el- Jedid the river ramifies into two branches, one fiowing through the imperial
880
NORTH-WEST APEICA.
gardens, the otlicr falling through a series of cascades down to the lower town,
where it a^-ain ramifies into a thousand rivulets. Unfortunately most of these
channels are Httle better than open sewers, which, uniting below the town, flow in
a fetid stream to the Sebu. Hence these damp quarters are constantly a prey to
Fisr. 173. — A Gateway in Fez.
epidemics, the pallid complexion of the inhabitants sufficiently attesting the foul
atmf).^])luTc in which they live. The ^l(>llu]i, or Jewish quarter, situated near the
citadel in the new town, is outwardly little better than the Moorish districts ; but
MEQUINEZ— VOLUBILIS. 381
the houses are cleaner inside. The Jews here, as elsewhere, monopolise most of the
trade, but are obliged to conceal their wealth in order to escape from the exactions
of their rulers.
Fez, or the "Hatchet," has been so named, says Ibu-Batuta, from a stone
hatchet discovered in a fissure of the soil, when the city was founded in the year
793. This was probably a stone weapon dating from pre-hi&toric times, when the
* people were troglodytes, as they partly still are. In the midst of the surrounding
gardens numerous caves are found, in which the natives take refuge like wild beasts
in their dens. According to local tradition and the statements of mediaeval writers,
Fez had at one time a population of four hundred thousand souls, dwelling in ninety
thousand houses. Of its 785 mosques not more than 130 now remain, and some of
these are abandoned. Two are regarded as specially sacred, almost as holy as the
sanctuaries of Mecca and Medina. These are the mosques of Mulai Dris and
Karawin, the latter possessing a famous library and a zawj^a frequented by
numerous students from Marocco and Algeria, who here study theology, juris-
prudence, and astronomy, in accordance with the principles handed down from the
time of the Almovarides, or "marabuts." Since that epoch Fez has been in a
state of decadence, notwithstanding the numerous immigrants expelled from Spain.
These " Andalusian Moors " were formerly powerful enough to constitute an
independent faction which commanded half the city.
As a trading place Fez has always held a foremost position, its commercial
relations being chiefly with Tangier, Marrakesh, Ebat, and Tlemcen. Th« local
industries, grouped in several guilds, jealous preservers of their traditions and
privileges, display a certain originality in weaving and embroidery, in leather-
dressing, and the manufacture of earthenware, of enamelled vases, and damascened ,
arms. Its sumptuous garments — yellow for the Mussulmans, black for the Jews, red
for the women — find a ready sale throughout the empire. To its other industries
has recently been added that of brandy, distilled from dates, figs, and other fruits.
The surrounding district, which contains rich deposits of salt, besides iron ores and
sulphur springs, is doubly holy, thanks to the eflacacy of its heahng Avaters and
the shrines of " saints " crowning the neighbouring heights.
South of Fez the affluents of the Upper Sebu water the gardens of several small
towns and hamlets, amongst which is the delightful town of Sefru, on the frontier
of the territory of the Ait-Yussi Berber tribe. "While Fez betrays every sign of
decadence, Sefru, lying in one of the richest districts of Mauritania, presents the
aspect of the greatest prosperity. Its wooded hills yield excellent timber, and its
fertile plains supply vast quantities of olives, lemons, cherries, grapes for the local
consumption and for export. Excellent wines are here produced at a very low
price.
MeQUINEZ — YOLUBILIS.
Meknes or Miknasa, the Mequinez of the Spaniards, has often been called the
"Versailles of Marocco."' Lying 36 miles west of Fez, it is still comprised within
the Sebu basin, its district being watered by affluents of the Wed Rdem, which
join the main stream in its lower course. It covers a considerable space enclosed
882
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
by well-preserved ramparts, and like other towns of the empire contains a fortified
kasbah, and a niellah, or Jewish quarter, surrounded by separate walls. These
fortifications were built by Christian captives, who when worn out by fatigue
were despatched and built into the masonry. The broad streets of Mequinez are
Fig. 174. — Mecxes and Volubilis.
Scale 1 : 200,000.
.! .Miles.
interspersed with p:ardcns, " the finest in the world," which supply Fez with fruits
and vegetables. Tlie grand gateway of the imperial castJe, with its marble pillar.s,
hor.se-shoe arches, enamelled tiles, and ornamental inscriptions, is a noble specimen
of Moorish architecture, although now much dilapidated. The mosque of Mulai
WEZZAN. 383
Ismail, the " Saint-Denis " of Marocco, is also in a half-ruined state. Within the
park, over a mile in circumference, are comprised palaces and graceful kiosks, a
stud of over a thousand high-bred mules, besides a labyrinth of underground
galleries till recently used as granaries. The Emperor was compelled to throw
open these stores during the terrible famine of 1878, when the greater part of the
corn was found to be mouldy. According to popular rumour, the palace of Meknes
also contains the imperial treasure, guarded in secret crypts by three hundred Negro
slaves destined never to see the light of day.
The Meknes district is the agricultural centre of the empire, and on the state
of its crops depends the whole annual trade of the country. Towards the north,
between the Rdem and Sebu Valleys, rise the Zarhun hills, where is situated the
town of like name, formerly one of the chief intellectual centres of Mauritania.
The inhabitants of Zarhun, all of Arab stock, are extremely fanatical, and frequently
entertain the emissaries of the Senusiya brotherhood. Here is the original home
of the Aissawa, who yearly resort in large numbers to their zawya in Meknes, to
which they are bound to make a solemn pilgrimage every seventh year.
The kubba of Muhi-Eclris, north of Meknes, is the most venerated spot in the
empire. Hitherto no European traveller has ventured to enter the holy place,
which occupies a savage gorge in the Zarhun hills near the zawya. During great
feasts men and women, seized with fits of frenzy, hack themselves with knives and
hatchets, while others fall with their teeth on any passing animal, such as dogs,
sheep, or goats. Even human beings are said on such occasions to have been
devoured alive.
On a slight eminence over a mile north-west of Mulai-Edris stand the ruins of
Kasr Far ami, first visited and described by Windus in 1721. The name of Walili,
borne by the neighbouring village, and the inscriptions found on the spot, identify
this place with the Voluhilis of the Romans. Long used as a quarry by the
builders of Meknes, Volubilis has preserved of its past greatness two monuments
only, a triumphal arch and the gates of a basilica. The marbles of this city are even
said to have found their way across the Atlas to the distant oasis of Tafilelt.
Tocolosida, another Roman station, stood in the neighbourhood of Volubilis.
Wezzan.
Wezzan, the holy city on the northern slope of the Sebu basin, about midway
between this river and Ksar-el-Kebir, was founded towards the close of the ninth
century by Mulai Tayeb, a direct descendant of the Prophet. It is still exclusively
peopled by Shorfa, who are held in great veneration throughout the Mussulman
world, but who in the city itself are the very humble servants of the great lord,
the Sherif in a superlative sense, more holy than the Sultan himself. By origin a
" saint," his vast wealth has made him almost a god, who, through the members of
the Taibiya order, levies cpntributions in money and kind in almost every village in
Marocco. In return he distributes these alms with a free hand, keeping open
stores for all comers, and often entertaining hundreds and even thousands of
S84
NOETH-WEST AFEICA.
pilorims, who come to kiss the hem of his garment. The Sultan is not fully
recoo'nised until he has received the homage of the saint of Wezzan, who is also a
" refuge of sinners," and whose native place is a general sanctuary for culprits.
The authorities themselves would not dare to seize a suppliant at the tomb of Mulai
Taveb, even were he pursued by the personal wrath of the Emperor. The mosque
attached to this shrine contains, amongst other treasures, a collection of nearly a
thousand Arabic manuscripts. But even before his death, events had impaired
the influence of the Sherif, who was reproached for keeping a bodyguard of
Fig. 175. — MuLAi Tateb, was Shbrif op Wezzan.
Spanish renegades, his friendship for Europeans, his marriage with a Christian
lady, his palace in the Italian style, and his costume modelled on that of the
detested Rumi. In 1876 his application for the favour of being made a French
citizen was refused.
Although the Sebu is the most populous and richest basin in the empire, the
mouth of the river is occupied by no large seaport, the ancient Mamora being
replaced by Mchdii/a, a mere village standing on a cliff '500 feet above the right
bank of the estuary. Leo Africanus was present when in 1515 the Mohammedan
army surprised and put to the sword the six or seven thousand Portuguese
SLA— KB AT. 885
at that time occupying Mehdiya. A hundred years later the Spaniards were more
fortunate, but in 1681 they were compelled in their turn to evacuate the fortress.
Since then no military works guard the mouth of the river, which is almost com-
pletely choked with sands.
Sla — Rbat.
All the trade of the country has been diverted to the twin towns of Sla (Sala,
Saleh) and Rhat {Rabat), situated at the mouth of the Bu-Regrag, some 18 miles
to the south-west. Sla, which stands on the right bank, preserves some traces
of Portuguese architecture, but is not an old place, although bearing the name of
the Phoenician city of Sala, which stood on the opposite bank, and which was
replaced by the Roman colony of Chella. The inhabitants are mostly Andalusian
Moors, who have kept alive the traditional hatred of their Christian persecutors.
Till recently, no non-Mussulman traveller was permitted to pass the night in Sla,
and even during the day Christians and Jews avoided the place. Hence the trade
and industries of the district have gravitated to Pbat, on the left bank, which has
almost become a European seaport. Above the other buildings rises a graceful
minaret, whose form, height, and style of ornamentation recall the famous Giralda
of Seville. According to Arab tradition, both of these towers, as well as the
Kutubia of Marocco, were constructed at the same epoch by Christian slaves, under
the direction of the same architect. The Rbat women, heirs of the old purple-
dyers who had made the name of Chella famous throughout the Roman wo^jld, still
weave woollen carpets and rugs of durable texture, but the colours of which soon
fade. Owing to its dangerous bar, exposed to the Atlantic surf, Rbat does little
trade with Europe, regard being had to the importance of the twin towns and of^
the river basin, of which they are the natural outports. Vessels are often obliged
to ride at anchor in the open roadstead, unable to land their goods or passengers, or
else pass on to Casablanca. Rbat has often been besieged by the independent
Berber tribes of the surrounding district, and to them must doubtless also be
attributed the destruction of the aqueduct by which it was formerly supplied with
water. The kasbah, which is strongly fortified, mounts over a hundred and sixty
guns, directed both seawards and against these marauders. In it is preserved the
"holy key" of the city of Cordova, which during the last war with Spain was
publicly exposed for several days.
Recently, the neighbouring Beni-Hassem (Beni-Hassan) tribe has been com-
pelled to recognise the Sultan's authority, and to allow its territory to be divided
into sixteen sections, whose respective chiefs are responsible for public order. But
farther east the Zemmur and Zaian Berbers are absolutely independent, allying
themselves with the Sultan on a footing of equality. Jointly with a few tribes of
less importance, they occupy the whole space from the coast to the Atlas, and from
Meknes southwards to the TJm-er-Rbia basin. This region, which is at least 16,000
square miles in extent, ie. closed to all subjects of the central Government unpro-
vided with safe-conducts. The Zemmurs, occupying an extremely fertile district,
are partly engaged in agriculture. But the Zaians, who are the most powerful
386 XOETH-'WTIST AFRICA.
nation on the maritime slope of the Atlas, are exclusively stock-breeders, possessing
more numerous and Huer herds oi cattle, camels, sheep, and goats than any other
tribe in the empire.
CASABLANCA— DEMNATA.
387
Casablanca— Demnata.
Between the moutlis of the Sebu and TJm-er-Rbia, the chief settlement is Dar-
el-Beida, better known under its Spanish form, Casablanca, or the " "White House."
Kg. 177. — Ebat ajtd Sla,
Scale 1 : 65,000.
Depths.
Sands exposed
at low vater.
0tol6
Feet.
16 to 32
Feet.
32 Feet and
upwards.
2,200 Yards.
Founded in the sixteenth century by the Portuguese on the site of the mediaeval
town of Anfa, Casablanca, owes its prosperity mainly to its roadstead, which, though
badly sheltered, is deep enough to receive vessels of large tonnage. Its chief
exports are maize, wool, and haricot beans, besides slippers, forwarded in thousands
888 NOETH-WEST Ai^EIOA,
throuo-h Gibraltar to Alexandria. Notwithstanding its unhealthy climate, a small
Etu-opean colony, chiefly French, is settled at Casablanca, which, owing to the total
absence of vegetation, presents an extremely dreary aspect.
In the upper Um-er-Rbia basin, the chief centre of population is Bu-el-Jad
a villa o-e of about two thousand inhabitants, ruled over by a sid, or religious
sovereio-n, whose power is recognised by all the surrounding tribes — such as the
Tadlas on the south and east, the Ait-Seri on the west, and the Shawia on the
north-west. The " saint " and his kindred, nearly all of mixed blood, live on the
"voluntary contributions" of the faithful. No traveller can visit the country
except under the protection of Ben Daud, " Son of David," lord spiritual of Bu-
el-Jad. At the end of the eighth century the whole of this region, now a hotbed
of Moslem fanaticism, is said by Edrisi to have been peopled by Christians and
Jews, and rimiour speaks of the ruins of a church still bearing a Latin inscription.
The Tadla territory, occupied by nine nomad tribes, with a collective force of
about twenty thousand horse, possesses a sort of common capital in the kasbah of
Et- Tadla, which stands on the Um-er-Rbia, at the foot of one of the best-constructed
fortresses in Marocco. The river, here nearly 135 feet wide, is spanned by a ten-
arched bridge : " the largest in the world," say the natives. The produce of the
neighbouring salt-mines is exported far and wide.
The fortress of Beni-Mellal, or Bel Ktish, lying in the Beni-Mellal territory to
the south-east, leads to the more important town of Demnnta, which is situated in a
fertile ind highly productive district on one of the southern affluents of the Um-
er-Rbia. Formerly a flourishing trading place, Demnata has suffered much from its
fatal proximity to Marrakesh, from which it is distant not more than 60 miles. The
"exorbitant dues levied by the Imperial Government on all merchandise entering the
town have compelled caravans to seek other markets. A third of the inhabitants
are Jews, who live intermingled with the Mohammedans, but who were recently
subjected to much oppressive treatment, calling for the intervention of European
diplomacy.
AZEMMUR MaZAGAN.
After collecting all the waters descending from the Atlas, the Um-er-Rbia flows
north-westwards, between the territory of the Shawia Berbers on the north and
the Dukkalas, mainly Arabs, on the south. The ancient town of Azetnmur {Azamor),
that is, " the Olives," which stands on the left bank of the estuary, is often
described as a ruin, probably because seldom visited by Europeans. Nevertheless,
its fisheries and industries are sufficiently productive to support an export trade at
least with the inland districts. The dangerous bar at the river mouth prevents all
access to shipping, which is obliged to cast anchor 4 miles to the south-west, at the
port of Mazayan, by the natives indifferently called El-Jedida, " the New," or
El-Brija, " the Fort." Although smaller than Azcmmur, Mazagan has more
importance for Europeans, and especially the inhabitan«ts of the Canary Islands,
who draw their supplies of cereals, haricots, and other provisions through this out-
port of the fertile Dukkala plains. On the cliff above Azemmur stand the still
EL-GHAlB-SiFFI.
389
imposing ruins of the buildings erected here by the Portuguese, who held this place
for over two centuries and a half, down to the year 1770.
El-Gthaib — Saffi.
South-east of Mazagan two breaks in the coastline, between this town and Cape
Ca^tin, give access to the Walidiya lagoon, the ancient port of El-Ghdih. According
to Tissot, it would be easy to restore this harbour and make it the best on the coast.
As in the time of Scylax, Cape Cantin, the Solis Mens of the ancients, is one of the
rig. 178. — Mazagan and Azemitue.
Scale 1 : 380,000.
6°20"
West »f .breenwich
Depths.
0to32
Feet.
32 to 64
Feet.
64 Feet and
upwards.
6 Miles.
most venerated spots in the whole of Africa. Here are several zawyas and a whole
population of theologians.
Saffi, the Asfi of the natives, lying south of Cape Cantin, although the nearest
port to Marrakesh, is less frequented than Mogador, the surf being more dangerous
at this point than elsewhere along the coast. Thanks to its Portuguese fortifica-
tions and citadel, with its pinnacles rising above the houses grouped on the slopes
of an eminence, Saffi is the most picturesque place on the Atlantic seaboard. Its
gardens are marvellously fertile, and the " House of the Seven Brethren," outside
the town, is a holy place venerated by Moslem and Jew alike, and frequented by
multitudes of invalids of all religions. Another place of pilgrimage is Lalla
390 NOEXn-WEST AFRICA.
Gob list a, " Our Lady of the Olive," a gigantic tree witli enormous branches,
unrivalled in the whole of "Western- Mauritania.
Marocco.
Marocco, or rather Marrakesh, the Temrakesh of the Berbers, second capital of
the empire, is the only city in the valley of the Tensift, which reaches the caist
between Saffi and Mogador. Seen from without, it presents a superb aspect,
rcFiinding pilgrims of the Syrian Damascus. Approaching it from the north or
north-east by the banks of the Tensift, which flows within a few miles of the city, the
traveller passes through a vast plantation of several hundred thousand palms, inter-
spersed here and there with the olive and other fruit-trees. Seen from the Mogador
direction, where the route traverses a bare and stony plain, a still more imposing
effect is produced by 'its massive walls flanked with towers, the lofty minaret of its
great mosque, and the long indented line of the Atlas, hazy below, blue and
streaked with snow towards the summit, bounding the eastern horizon. Standing at
an elevation of 1,660 feet some 30 miles from the spurs of the Atlas, Marrakesh is
abimdantly supplied with water, every house possessing a separate well, every
garden irrigated with a purling stream. Its equable climate also, tempered by the
neighbouring mountains, is one of the most delightful in the world, reflected, so to
say, in the vegetation, where plants of the temperate are intermingled with those
of the tA)pical regions.
Marrakesh-el-IIamra, or " the Red," was founded in the second half of the
eleventh century, some 24 miles north of the ancient city of Afjhmat {Armat), whose
Ynhabitants migrated to the new settlement. The capital grew rapidly, and in the
following century it was already one of the " queens " of Mauritania. Although
now dethroned and outstripped in population, trade, and industries by its northern
rival, Fez, it is still regarded as an imperial capital, visited yearly by the Sultan.
The approach of his Majesty is grimly heralded by the despatch of a number of
human heads, destined to decorate the front of the palace, as a warning to unruly
spirits meditating revolt. About the year 1860 the Rahmennas, one of the powerful
Berber tribes in the outskirts^ having broken into open rebellion, had to be forcibly
dislodged before an entrance could be effected. The Berber element is numerously
represented even within the walls, and on market days Tamazight is more
generally spoken in the bazaars than Arabic. The Negroes are also numerous,
relatively far more so than in the northern capital. As in most other towns of
Marocco, the Jews, though now protected by the Israelitish Alliance, &re still
confined to a mcllah, or separate quarter, enclosed by ramparts, which they cannot
cross except barefooted and with downcast eyes.
Notwithstanding its imposing external aspect, Marrakesh presents inside the
aj)pcarance of a decayed city. The ramparts, about 7 miles in circuit, not including
the walls of the imperial park south of the city, arc interrifipted by wide broaches ;
the thoroughfares leading to the seven gates are in many places lined more with
ruins than with houses ; more than half of the area comprised within the enclosures
MAEOCCO. 391
is occupied "v^'itli waste spaces and fjardens often Ipng fallow. The streets,
sufficiently wide near the gates, merge towards the centre in a labyrinth of narrow
lanes encumbered with filth. Most of the houses have a mean appearance, and of
892
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
the mouimients, mostly in. ruins, one alone can be called fine. This is the mosque
of Kutubia, or rather of the Kutsubia, that is, of " the Calligraphers," so named
from the writers whose booths adjoin the sacred edifice. The lofty tower dominating
the mosque, apparently raised by the architect of the Sevillian Giralda and of the
Hassan tower at Rbat, is the finest and highest of the three. Two of the city gates.
Fig. 180. — Maerakesh.
Scale 1 : 350,000. ,,
Mussulman Ccfnekeryv \ ., v c .
West O'f; Green«r?ch
2" 50'
. 1,100 Yards.
one leading to the palace, the other to a mosque, are said to have been transported
block by block from Spain.
The local industries have greatly fallen ofp. Whole streets, formerly inhabited
by carriers, are now deserted, and the famous " Marocco " wares formerly prepared
by the Moors exiled from Cordova are no longer produced in Marrakesh. The
best leatherwork is now made in Fez, although the southern capital still does a
large trade in skins with the southern districts of the Atlas. The Marrakesh
MOGADOE. 893
carpets are carefully woven, yet less esteemed than those of Rbat. At present the
chief occupation of the inhabitants is gardening. One of the orchards comprised
Tvithin the enclosures of the imperial grounds is said to yield a yearly crop of fruits
valued at £20,000. The zone of gardens stretches for miles in the direction of the
hills, and the hamlets occupied by horticulturists are grouped in large numbers
round the ramparts. One of these towards the north-west is exclusively inhabited
by a community of lepers, who enjoy self-government, forming a little common-
we^th, with its bazaar, prison, Jewish quarter, and mosque dedicated to a patron
saint. Towards the south are still visible a few vestiges of the ancient Aghma^;,
which was formerly capital of the Lamtunas, better known by the name of
Mrabotin, that is, the Almoravides, or " marabuts." An upland valley to the east
of ]Marrakesh is held by the powerful confederation of the Tiffas, of Zenaga
stock.
MOGADOR.
At present the chief port of Marrakesh is Swe'ira, "the Beautiful," better known
to Europeans by the name of Mogador, from a. shrine erected to a " Saint " Mogdal
or Mogdul, over a mile to the south of the town. At this point a harbour formerly
existed, as shown by a Spanish map dated 1608. But the present town, which
ranks as a seaport next in importance to Tangier and Casablanca, was built a little
over a century ago, between the years 1760 and 1773, mainly by French prisoners
captured at the time of the disastrous expedition of Larash in 1765. Laid«out on
a regular plan, Mogador presents a somewhat monotonous aspect, with its uniform
blocks of houses, perfect cubes in form, and painted a dull grey colour. It stands
at the extremity of a sandy spit stretching southwards, and separated by a channel •'
from a fortified island, which defends the shallow and exposed roadstead. The
guns spiked at the time of the French bombardment in 1844 have not yet been
replaced, and the projectiles launched by the French fleet still lie strewn at the
foot of the ramparts.
The commercial importance of Mogador is due to the fact that it is the outport
not only of Marrakesh, but of all the southern Atlas districts, its chief exports to
Europe being such local produce as cereals, oils, fruits, hides, gums, wools, and alfa
grass. Like that of Saffi, the coastline has here been modified either by erosion or
by a subsidence of the soil. In the middle of the present century cattle could easily
pass at low water from the Mogador peninsula to the neighbouring island, from
which it is now separated by a navigable channel.
The chief Arab, or at least Arabised, tribes in the Mogador district belong to the
powerful Shiadma confederation, which, while refusing to pay tribute, allows free
passage to caravans, and recognises the suzerainty of the Sultan. Its villages and
convents are scattered over a large tract south of the Wed Tensift between the
Jebel-el-Hadid and the advanced spurs of the Atlas.
South of !Mogador, in t\ie direction of the headland terminating the main Atlas
range, no more to-wTis or even scattered hamlets are now to be seen. Here all the
natives live in groups of four or five families in strong stone fortalices, generally of
AFRICA 1. eld
394
NORTn-WEST AFRICA.
square form, flanked at two angles with higli towers, and enclosed by a ditch. Tho
ground floor is occupied by the cattle, while the upper story, approached by a
ladder which may be removed in time of danger, is disposed in as many chambers
as there are families in the stronghold. Such are the means devised for their
mutual protection by the local Ilaha Berbers, who are settled agriculturists exposed
to the raids of the nomad Saharian Arabs. They, however, in their turn occa-
sionally fall on passing caravans, so that traders never venture to enter their
territory unarmed or in small bodies. The various Idan, or clans, constituting
Fig. 181, — MOGADOE AND NeIOHBOUBHOOD.
Scale 1 : 150,000.
V/pst of Greenwich 2°^b
3°40*' ~
Depths.
0to32
Feet.
82 to 80
Feet.
80 to 160
Feet.
160 Feet and
upwards.
3 Miles.
the ITaha confederacy, have been estimated by A Ivarez Perez at two hundred and
eighty thousand souls.
The well-watered and highly productive Si^s valley abounds in large villages
surrounded by palm, olive, and orange groves. The district is entirely occupied by
an industrious peasantry free from the razzias of marauding nomads. Formerly
the well-defined basin of the Sus constituted an autonomous state, whose inhabitants
were noted in mediccval times for their industry, learning, and enterprising spirit.
At present they are known in the MussiJman world chiefly as strolling dancers,
jugglers, and snake-charmers, who emigrate in large numbers to every part of
Mauritania, and even at times find their way to Europe^ They constitute a sort of
guild, placed under the patronage of a " Saint " Mohammed-ben-Musa, whose name
is always invoked before beginning their performances. From the S^s coimtry,
TAETJDANT—AGADIR— SAKIET-EL-HAMEA. 895
according to certain local Mussulman prophecies, is one day to go fortli the Mahdi,
who is destined to renew the face of the earth, and who " shall fill the world with
as much righteousness as it is now filled with wickedness."
Tarudais^t.
©flScially the Wed Sus belongs to the empire, and the Sultan's envoys are here
received with honour. Nevertheless most of the tribes are stjll independent, and
the only effect of the suzerain's intervention, who divides in order one day to rule,
is to increase their internal feuds and foment a perpetual state of intestine warfare.
The natives are for the most part Berbers of somewhat mixed origin, although the
Awaras, one of the largest confederations, call themselves Arabs. They comprise
seven tribes occupying the southern slope of the Atlas in the immediate vicinity of
the Bibawan pass. Like the Hahas of the opposite declivity, th'ey dwell in strong-
holds erected on isolated bluffs and headlands, whence a view is commanded of the
approaching enemy, or of peaceful caravans in^dting attack. The Shtuga con-
federation, which holds the whole region between the Atlantic and Tarudant,
consists exclusively of Berber tribes.
Tarudant, capital of the Sus basin, lies a little to the north of the river, in a vast
plain which rises gradually towards the hills occupied by the Awaras, and towards
the southern escarpments of the Atlas. According to RohHs, Tarudant ccjvers a
larger area than Fez ; but far more gardens and olive groves than groups of
habitations are comprised within its irregular enclosures flanked by earthen towers
at intervals of 200 or 300 feet. Towards the centre, however, vegetation gives
place to a real town, with narrow winding streets commanded on the north-east by
a strono:lY built citadel. Its chief industries are leather-dressing, weavino-, dveino'.
and especially copperware for the markets of Kuka, Kano, and Timbuktu in the
Sudan. This industry was originally created by the copper mines of the neigh-
bouring Atlas hills to the north; but at present nearly all the crude metal is
imported from England. The sugar plantations, which in the time of Leo
iVfricanus constituted the chief wealth of Tarudant, have long ceased to exist.
Agadir — Sakiet-el-Hamra.
The natural outport of the Sus basin is Agadir, standing a little to the north of
the estuary which forms the best harbour on the Marocco seaboard. The inlet is
sheltered from the east and north winds on the north-west by Cape Gher (Jebel
Ait-Wakal), the extreme headland of the Atlas range. At the head of the bay
another cape, formed by a projecting lateral ridge, encloses the harbour proper,
completely protecting it from the open surf. A group of Ij^ts at the foot of this
ridge is supplied with water by a copious spring, and the port is commanded by an
agadir, or " rampart," whence Agadir-ne-Irir, or " Cape Rampart," the full
designation of this seaport.
Held by the Portuguese since the beginning of the sixteenth century, and by
896
NOETn-'S\:EST APEICA.
them rc-named Santa-Cruz, Agadir rose to considerable commercial prosperity.
Even under native rule it continued for a time to flourish as the outport of the
produce brought by caravans from the Niger regions. But its distance from the
centre of the empire tempting its inhabitants to strike for their independence,
Agadir was destroyed by Sultan Mohammed and replaced by Mogador, lying
farther north. As a military outpost, Agadir marked till recently the real limit of
the imperial administration on the Atlantic seaboard. But the foundation of a
Spanish settlement in the neighbourhood has induced the Sultan to consolidate his
power on this southern frontier by building the new town of Tiznit on a clifE some
12 miles farther inland. The village of Aglu {Afjula), 18 miles south from the
Fig. 182.— TAEl7DA^'T.
Scale 1 : 57.000.
Sff
30"
•'' O/i've Groves . ■ .
snd Bar/ey Fields ."
". . for^si o^Ar§*rtiera
XJ L A D SAX. JTJl TA
50*
West oT Gf^enwich 9°
8°S8'
3,300 Yards.
mouth of the "Wed-el-Ghas, is destined to become the outport of Tiznit. In the
twelfth century the power of the Almohades reached still farther south, and Abd-
cl-Mumen is said to have had the distance carefully measured between the two
extremities of his empire, from Barka to the Wed Nun.
At present the imperial authority ceases altogether a little south of the S&s,
although indicated on the maps as extending to Saliict-cl-TFamrn, south of Cape
Jubi. An uninhabited tract even forms a sort of borderland to the south of the
territory recognising the Sultan's jurisdiction. This is the upper valley of the
AVed-el-Ghas (Raz, Welghas), one of the best watered and most fertile in the
whole of Mauritania, but condemned to desolation by frontier warfare and
diplomacy. The petty states south of the Ghas are all peopled by Berbers and
Negroes, who serve as intermediaries of commercial intercourse between Marocco
ILEGH— OGULMIN. 397
and Sudan. Most of them call themselves Guezzula, or Jelula, a term analogous
to the Gueshtula of KabyKa, and possibly identical with the Numidian Getula) of
ancient writers.
Of all these petty maritime states the most important, although not the largest,
is that commonly knowTi as "the kingdom of Sidi Hesham," from a recently
reigning sheikh, in whose family the supreme power is still centred. In virtue of
its genealogical relations it even claims a right to the imperial crown. The proper
name of the district is Tazzerult, which is also that of a stream flowing from the
slopes of the Little Atlas. The natives cultivate barley and wheat, and also work
some local mines ; but their chief pursuit is the breeding of camels, partly exported,
partly employed by them in the caravan trade across the Sahara. Every three
years a large mugar, or fair, is held near the zawya of Sidi-Hamed-ben-Musa,
ancestor of the reigning prince, and on these occasions as many as four or five
thousand camels are collected on the spot. The present sheikt has removed the
former interdict excluding the Jews from this market, and in order to attract trade
to his territory he even holds himself personally responsible for the public security,
indemnifying traders plundered on the route through the unsettled districts of the
Awaras and other marauders.
Ilegh — Ogulmin".
Ikfjh, capital of Tazzerult, standing, according to Lenz, at an elevation of
1,530 feet, is largely inhabited by Sudanese Negroes. The army of the sheikh,
who is himself a black, is composed entirely of slaves from every part of Sudan,
including even some Fulahs. As in Nigritia, blue garments are the prevaiKng
colour, and, like the Tuaregs, the men go partly veiled, while the women walk
abroad uncovered.
Towards the source of the "Wed Tazzerult an isolated volcanic cone is crowned
by the impregnable stronghold of Agadir, marking the southern limit of " the king-
dom of Sidi Hesham," here conterminous with the territory of the Mejad Berbera
The waters descending from the southern slope of the Anti- Atlas flow to the "Wed
Nun, whose basin is divided into several petty states, the chief of which near the
coast usually takes the name of the river itself. The natives have for centuries
been dreaded by the fishermen from the Canaries and other mariners, all vessels
running aground on these inhospitable shores being regarded as legitimate prize,
and the crews mostly enslaved.
Ognlmin, capital of the state, and usually known as Wed-Nun, stands at an
elevation of probably over 3,000 feet, too high for dates to ripen. Beyond the
oasis encircKng the town nothing is visible except an amphitheatre of bare arid
hills, said by the natives to aboimd in silver and copper ores. Ogulmin is one of
the chief trading stations between Mogador and Timbuktu ; but it is above all
a great depot for slaves from Sudan. To Mogador, besides slaves, it sends ostrich
feathers, a little gold dust, horses and mules of good stock, and sheep. It belongs
to the Ait Hassan tribe, with whom the local Jews are said to live on a footing
898 NOETn-WEST AFRICA.
of perfect equality. They are probably Berbers converted to Judaism before tlie
arrival of the Arabs; hence, having had no hand in the death of the "Lord
Jesus," they are exempt from the load of reprobation weighing on the other
Israelites.
Tizzi — Santa Cruz — Ifnt.
Some 24 miles farther east lies the town of Tizzi or Fimi-el-ITossan, which
belongs to the Maribda Arab community. It stands, according to Lenz, at an alti-
tude of 1,G00 feet, in an admirable position at the mouth of a rocky gorge commanded
by pyramidal mountains. Jiii oasis of palms follows the course of a stream, whose
waters sometimes reach the Wed Nun. On a hill to the north are some ruins attri-
buted by the natives, apparently with good reason, to the Romans. In the district
occur other remains, such as continuous ramparts like the wall of China, high
towers with sculptured pinnacles, tombs and inscribed rocks like those found in
large numbers throughout Mauritania from Tripoli tana to Marocco. These carvings
comprise inscriptions in the Tefinegh (Berber) character, besides figures of animals,
including the elephant, rhinoceros, horse, and giraffe. The human figure nowhere
occurs, although arms, garments, and other works of man are represented on these
mysterious petroglyphs.
In the region comprised between the "Weds Ilegh and Nun, Spain apparently
intends to establish the centre of administration for the new territory acquired by
the treaty concluded with Marocco in 1860. In virtue of a special clause, the
Spanish Government reserves the right to re-occupy the port of Santa Cruz de Mar
Pcqtiena {Mar Menor or Mar Chica), which it held for twenty years, from 1507 to
1527. But the very site of this former conquest can no longer be determined with
certainty, and it is doubtful whether any vestiges remain of the Agadir or Gicadcr
razed to the ground by the natives. Nevertheless, fearing to be involved in fresh
complications through the incursions of hostile tribes, the Sultan's Government
reluctantly ceded a strip of land in a territory over which it exercised no jurisdic-
tion, offering instead either a large indemnity, or the Bay of Agnas, on the Mediter-
ranean coast, over against the Zaffarine Islands, or even an extension of the Ceuta
district. But Spain was obdurate, and a special expedition commissioned to discover
the lost port of Santa Cruz has reported in favour of the If/n inlet, 18 miles north-
east of the "Wed Nun estuary, near which were foimd some ruins of Spanish or
Portuguese construction. The harbour of Ifni, the choice of which was ratified by
the Sultan in 1883, has the great advantage of proximity to the Ogulmin market,
and of easy access to the rich plains of the Wed-el-Ghas and Wed Svis ; and if
selected with a view to further conquest, it has also the advantage above all other
places in dispute of lying most to the north, that is, nearest to the Marocco frontier.
Ifni, however, answers in no respect to the description of Santa Cruz de Mar
Pequcfia contained in the documents of the sixteenth century. Galiano thinks he
has found the true pof^ition of the old Spanish port at Boca Grande, on the mouth
of the Wed Shibika uud about midway between Puerto Cansado and the Wed Draa
estuary.
THE DEAA BASm.
899
The Draa Basix.
This estuary exactly faces tlie island of Lanzarote in the Canary Archipelago,
while the "Wed itself has its source at least 330 miles east of Marrakesh in the
Atlas highlands. The inhabitants of its basin, estimated by Rohlf s at two hundred
, Fig. 183, — Ifxi A^■D Neighboueing Coast.
Scale 1 : 1,000,000..
m^mt^mr'fpm':
lO'po
V/e3t of G-
Depths.
0 to 160
Feet.
160 to 320
Feet.
320 to 3,200
Feet.
3,200 Feet
and upwards.
18 Miles.
and fifty thousands souls, are almost exclusively of Berber stock and speech, and
here is found the Beraber or Braber tribe which has preserved the very name of
the race. A few hamlets, however, are exclusively inhabited by Shorfa Arabs,
400 NORTH-WEST AFEICA.
members of the Prophet's family, wliile some of tlic Beni-Mohammed (Beni-Mahmid)
nation are scattered over the district. The Negroes also form small colonics in
every oasis, and their blood is mixed vdih. that of the other inhabitants. The
Jews are represented in all the villages as artisans, although Jewish traders
are comparatively less numerous on the southern than on the opposite slope of the
Atlas.
^Ul the oases in the Draa basin are independent, or at most yield a nominal
submission to the authority of the Sultan. In many respects the natives of this
rc^gion appear to be more civilised than those of the western provinces. Their
dwellings especially are more elegant, adorned with terraces and turrets, provided
with balustrades and decorated with mouldings.
All the Upper Draa Valley, from the Tagherut pass to and beyond the confluence
of the Dades river, is occupied by the Glawa people. Their chief place is Tikirt, on
the northern verge bf an arid stony plain stretching southwards in the direction of
the Anti- Atlas. Before entering the gorge piercing this range, the Draa is joined
by the Dades, whose banks are cultivated and lined with houses wherever sufficient
space is afforded between the torrent and its rocky walls. Here every hamlet is
guarded by a square tower 30 or 40 feet high, from which the inhabitants keep up
a constant fire whenever war breaks out between two conterminous clans. These
feuds are generally due to disputes about the irrigation canals ; otherwise the
people are peaceful enough, the various villages appointing their delegates to a
common jemaa or assembly, which takes measures against the hostile Ait-Attas.
The natives of Dades claim to have long possessed a special remedy against ophthal-
mia, and their eye-doctors yearly visit every part of Mauritania in the exercise of
their art.
Beyond the Anti- Atlas gorges both banks of the Draa are lined by an almost
continuous village, to the point where the river enters the desert and trends to the
south-west. The population, chiefly Ilaratins, or black Berbers, have converted
the whole region for 120 miles, from the Mezquita to the Ktawa district, into a vast
garden. Their palms yield the best dates in Western Mauritania, and in such
quantities that at the time of Ilohlf 's visit a load of 375 lbs. was sold for two francs.
Besides dates, the country yields some cereals, cabbages, onions, turnips, carrots,
tomatos, melons, and in the south liquorice-root.
In the Wed Draa the chief town is Tamagrat, on the right bank of the stream
over against the extremity of the Bani range. It is regarded as a sort of capital,
thanks to its important market, and to the religious influence of its zawya, dedicated
to Sidi Ilamed-ben-Nasser. But a more popidous place is Beni-Sbih^ chief
town of the rich Ktawa district and of the Beni-Mohammed nation. The
village of Zaivy in the Ilarib territory, is tho starting-jDoint of caravans ior the
Sudan.
TissENT — Tatta.
West of the Upper Draa the quadrilateral space bounded north by the Anti-Atlas,
south by the dry bed of the Lower Draa, is occupied by a few oases, such as
MEIMINIA— FERKXA. 401
Tazenakht, traversed by the river of like name, and Tissent, an almost unbroken
forest watered by numerous springs. The Tissent Eiver is perennial, but so
brackish that the natives suppose it flows from the sea. Although calling them-
selves Shellahas, the inhabitants are nearly all Haratins, who wear a blue kesh-
kaba (smock) like the Sudanese Negroes. They are famed for their religious
zeal, their great ambition being to make the pilgrimage to Mecca.
The pastoral and agricultural Berbers of the neighbouring hills belong to the
great Zenaga (Sanheja) family, whose name they bear. Proud of their origin,
they keep aloof from contact with aliens, and all speak Tamazight exclusively.
De Foucauld describes them as a tall thin people, athletic but ill-favoured, with a
deep bronze complexion. They are feared as warriors, although less so than the
Dui-Bellal Arabs of the plain, present suzerains and protectors of the Tissent oasis.
These Arabs, formerly without rivals between the Atlas and the Niger, have been
so reduced by intestine strife, that in 1883, at the time of Do Foucaiild's visit, the
tribe could muster no more than eighteen hundred armed men. For the purity of
their Arab speech, handsome features, graceful carriage, and courteous manners,
they are distinguished above all other nomads of South Marocco.
"West of Tissent follows the Tatta oasis, which has been almost ruined by the
Dui-Bellals, who when called in as allies remained as oppressors. Tatta is the
largest oasis between the Draa and the Atlantic, but is divided into several distinct
groujDS surrounded by the desert. Like AJiha, which lies farther west near the
sources of the Nun, it has ceased to be one of the centres of trade between
Mogador and Timbuktu. The Jewish jewellers of Akka were fonnerly noted for
their artistic skill ; but arts and commerce have alike perished, and the jDeople
now depend exclusively on the produce of their palm groves. Here was born tEe
Rabbi Mardochai, one of the few travellers that have described their visit to
Timbuktu.
Mrimixia — Ferkla.
At present the chief market in the "Wed Draa region is Mrimiuia (Rahioiimia),
lying south of the Beni range on the "SYed Zeguid, a perennial stream abounding
in lish. The influential zawya of Sidi Abd- Allah, with the shrines of his ancestors,
forms the centre of the village, round which are grouped the huts of the free
Haratins and slaves. The annual fair of Mriminia, which lasts three days, is fre-
quented by traders from every part of the Draa and Sus basins, and from Tafilelt.
It is second in importance only to that of Sidi Hammed- ben-Musa in the Tazzerult
district. Between the two lies the market of Suk-el-Muluk, in the territory of the
Ait-Yussa tribe.
East of the long "Wea Draa oasis, the chief Berber peoples are the warlike Ait-
Sedrats and A'it-Attas, nomads on the steppe, settled agriculturists in the riverain
tracts along the Todra, Zis, and other streams, which after meeting in the Tafilelt
country are lost in the d'esert. Among the oases of this region are Todra [TodgJtd^,
a narrow strip of cultivated land extending north and south in the depression
between the Great Atlas and the southern range, and the far less extensive Ferkla,
402 NORTH-WEST AFEICAi
lower down on the same river. Some of the Ferkla palm groves belong to the
powerful Ait-Mebrad tribe, who gained a sanguinary victory over the Ait-Attas in
1883.
The Zis Basin.
Far more populous than the Todra Valley is that of the Zis, which flows south-
wards from the Tizi'nt-er-Riut pass in the Great Atlas, along the historic caravan
route between Fez and Timbuktu. The upper valley of the Zis (Guers), inhabited
by the Ait-Sdig Berbers, has been described as "another Italy " in the variety of
its products and equable climate. The banks of the stream form a continuous
garden, dotted over with villages whose houses are built of baked earth mixed with
straw and pebbles. Farther down the palm groves form an uninterrupted planta-
tion extending from oasis to oasis as far as the desert.
Mclaghra, the first of the groves belonging to the region comprised under the
generic name of Tafilelt, is one of the richest and most densely peopled on the
Sahara slope, comprising about forty villages, some of which are of considerable
extent. The largest is Kashah-el-K^dima, or "the Old Fort," which has a
population of fifteen hundred souls. The dates, like the grapes, olives, peaches,
and other fruits of Mdaghra, are all of exquisite flavour, and this oasis might
be an earthly Eden but for the rivalries of its Arab, Berber, and Jewish inha-
bitants. Many are reduced to great want, and over two-thirds are said to suffer
from various forms of ophthalmia.
Tafilelt Oasis.
• South of Mdaghra, most of the natives belong to the powerful Ait-Atta con-
federation, which extends westwards to the Wed Draa. According to the local
tradition, about one hundred years ago the Ait-Attas expelled the Shorfa Arabs
from this part of Tafilelt, which takes the name of Ertih or Retch. Their women,
who go imveiled, are distinguished from most others in Marocco by the practice of
tattooing different parts of the body. Ez-Zerigat, capital of Ertib, is probably the
largest to^^'n in tlie whole of Tafilelt, mustering, according to Rohlfs, over twelve
hundred armed men. At Ducra, a little lower down, the Zis runs out in the sands
in summer, reappearing, however, in the Tissimi oasis. Farther on the stream
again disappears, leaving the inhabitants of South Tafilelt without surface water
till the returning spring. Then the Zis, swollen by the melting snows of the
Atlas, overflows its banks, converting the oasis into a lake. The Daya-el-Daura
scbkha, which receives all the waters from the eastern Atlas, is also transformed to
a temporary lake during the floods.
Tlie oasif} which is specially kno^nl by tlic name of Tafilelt or Tafilala, is llio
centre of the largest population in the whole of the Sahara, estimated by Rohlfs
at not less than one hundred thousand souls, grouped in more than a Inmdred
and fifty ksars or villages. The district, covering an ared of probably 400 square
miles, is almost completely enclosed by an amphitheatre of hills, being open only
in the north through the Zis Valley, and in the south-east towards the desert.
EE-RISSANI— AMRA.
40^
Besides dates, some wheat, barley, and clover are grown, whenever tlie winter
floods have been sufficiently copious. Till recently the population was almost
exclusively Arab, but at present it is mixed, the A'it-Atta Berbers having seized
a large number of the vil-
lages. In Tafilelt, as else- Kg. ISi.— Wed Zis and Tafilelt Oases.
where in Marocco and in Scaie i : 1.200,000.
4.1geria, the conquering
Arabs are thus being every-
where crowded out by the
aboriginal Berber race.
Er-Rissani — Amra.
Tafilelt has two capitals
scarcely separated by a
stone's throw — Er-Rissani,
residence of the governor,
in the north-east, and in
the south-west Ahuayn or
Bii-Aam, where the traders
chiefly resort. The latter,
the largest and wealthiest
place in the whole oasis, is
the chief market for the
Sahara between Twat and
the Wed Draa. Here all
the industries are grouped
in separate quarters — in
one place clothiers, in an-
other dealers in oil, butter,
and soap ; elsewhere ar-
mourers, carpenters, sad-
dlers, and the leather-
workers who were for
centuries the glory of Ta-
filelt. Its famous jild ©1-
filali, or skins tanned with
an indigenous plant, doubt-
less an acacia, are still forwarded to Fez and Tlcmcen. From Sudan are imported
ostrich feathers, some gold dust and slaves. Most European wares are introduced
chiefly from Algeria, although tea still continues to be purchased from English
dealers. As in Marocco, the circulating medium is almost exclusively five-franc
pieces.
The governor is always a brother or near relation of the Sultan; but Lis
Villages.
18 Miloa.
404 NOHTH-WEST AFRICA.
authority is powerless against the will of the communal assemblies. He cannot
even prevent the inhabitants of his own ksar from waging war against their
ncio-hbours. Tafilclt, the original home of his family, is the Berber form of Filal,
a district in Arabia, whence are supposed to have come the ancestors of Mulai Ali-
Sherif, founder of the Marocco dynasty. His tomb is still shown, 25 miles south-
east of xVbuam.
West of the present capital stretches an extensive plain, strewn with the ruirus
of Amra, at least 5 miles in circumference, in the centre of which stand a minaret
and' the arches of a mosque covered with exquisite arabesques as fresh as if sculp-
tured yesterday. Amra, or Medinet-cl-Aamcra, " the populous city," is almost
certainly the famous Sejelmcissa {Sijilmassa) mentioned by mediaeval writers, w'hich
geographers long sought for beyond the oasis, until it was shown by Walckenaer
and D'Avezac that the names Tafilelt and Sejelmassa are identical. It was founded
over a hundred years -after the Ilejira, and although frequently ruined by sieges
and wars, it continued to serve as the governor's residence down to the close of
the seventeenth century, when the present fort Er-Rissani was erected. TiU the
year 1815, the mosque was a centre of Koranic studies, where five hundred students
were supported at the expense of the state ; and ever since the middle of the
century the public prayer for the emperor of Marocco was still read every
Friday.
The fluvial basin east of the Zis, although more extensive, contains a less
volume of water. Nevertheless the traveller passing north of the great ham&da
can always depend on finding a spring or stream, pastures and habitations, at every
station. The Sultan's forces never penetrate into this region, although his spiritual
suierainty is recognised by the natives. The country, however, has been several
times traversed by French detachments in pursuit of Algerian rebels. In 1870,
"Wimpffen's column reconnoitred a part of the Upper Guir basin close to the
Tafilelt oasis, and 150 miles from the Oran frontier. The chief tribes inhabiting
this borderland of the desert are the Berabers, the Beni-Guils, Dui-Menias, and
Ulad-Jerirs. The Beni-Guil Berbers are chiefly centred on the upland pastures
about the headstrcams of the AVeds Guir, Kenatsa, and Zusfana, while the Dui-
Menia and Ulad-Jerir iVrabs, kinsmen of the Algerian Hamians, lie nearer to the
desert. All are often collectively known by the general name of Zegdu, or
" Confederates."
The GriK Basin.
The farthest sources of the Guir, that is, "River," rise on the plateaux near
the headstreams of the Moluya, flowing thence in deep gorges through the southern
escaqjments of the hills skirting the Sahara. Ain-Shair, the chief oasis in this
upland region, grows a few dates ; but, as indicated by its name, its chief source of
wealth is cereals, exported to aU the lower oases. In the Dui-Menia territory
beyond the mountain gorges, the bed of the Guir is so wide that it takes the name
of Buhariat, or " Little Sea." Here it ramifies into innumerable rivulets flowing
between forests of tamarisks, or watering the open cultivated tracts. Immediately
THE GUIR BASIN.
406
west of this verdant depression, -yvliich was formerly a lacustrine basin, the Guir is
separated from the Zis basin by one of the dreariest and most dreaded regions in
the desert. Although sometimes called the Hamada-el-Kebir, or " Great Hamada,"
it cannot compare in extent with many other plateaux of the Sahara, being scarcely
60 miles broad ; but it is extremely difficult to traverse, owing to the small sharp
stones strewn over the surface. Its mean altitude is about 2,600 feet, rising very
Fig. 185. — EL-BinAEiAT op the Wed Guib.
Scale 1 : 120,000.
"^ ^
ill U .\l
. .. \%
i4A cw
^CFum Drlbi
V~i -K^ / /^••¥#'f ^¥^1 ' 5g si s>*
■*'■
'^'VfJmm fii^
West o'f 'Greenwich- 2° 40
4,400 Yards.
gradually from the banks of the Wed Guir westwards, and falling suddenly towards
the Tafilelt oases. On the verge of the desert between Tafilelt and the Algerian
frontier stand the two religious cities of Es-SnheU, on the upper Guir, and Konatsa,
near the source of ^the Wed Kcnatsa. The former is governed by a " chief of chiefs "
of the Nassiria order, who has a right to a share in all the offerings made to the
members of the other confraternities. Kenatsa also has a zawya of the Sidi Bu-
40G
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
Zian order, dating from tlio eleventh century, much revered by the surrounding
nomads. On the route to the Boanam oasis west of Kenatsa, the Bcui-Sitho
Kabyles work some lead and uutimony mines in a neighbouring hill.
The Figuig Oasis.
In the upper "Wed Guir basin the most populous oasis is that of Figuio-, about
30 miles from the conventional line accepted as the frontier between Algeria and
Fig-. 18G.— FiouiG Oabis.
Rcale 1 : 100.000.
4,400 Yards.
3raroceo. The fifteen thousand inhabitants of Figuig, nearly all members of the
Amur tribe, bear a great reputation for prowess throughout^tlic S ihara, due to the
boUef that in the conflicts with tlie French they must have remained victorious,
seemg that the oasis has not yet been seized by France.
SOCIAL CONDITION OF MAEOCCO. 407
Ffguig, whicli stands at a mean elevation of over 2,400 feet, is encircled by-
hills rising irregularly on the plateau from 600 to 1,300 feet above the palm groves
on the plain. A river, or rather a watercourse, with a few pools here and there,
winds north of the oasis, sweeping round west and south to its junction with the
Zusf ana, one of the main branches of the Guir. At Figuig it is known as the Wed-
el-Halluf, but this name changes from gorge to gorge, and from confluence to
confluence.
Figuig, which still produces excellent dates, stands on the natural limit between
the region of the plateaux and the Sahara, where alfa grass begins to be replac^ed
by drin, the characteristic plant of the desert. The largest village within the
common enclosure of the oases lies at the south-west angle, and bears the name of
Zenaga, recalling the ancient confederation of the Zenagas or Sanhejas, whose
members are scattered over North Africa from Tunis to Senegal. So precious is
water in this oasis that a kharruha, that is, the right to a third of a spring twice a
month for an hour each time, costs £24 in Zenaga.
The natives are distinguished by their handsome features and dignified bearing.
Amongst them, as amongst so many other Berber communities, light hair and blue
eyes are by no means rare. Beyond the enclosure they hold two other villages,
Tarla and Beni-Unif, l}^g to the south, while numerous groups of tents are
scattered over the slopes of the hills. All the jalis, or outer oases, belong to the
Zenagas, who, being unable to cultivate all their plantations, allow them to remain
unproductive every third year. The whole group of oases, containiag about
two hundred thousand palms, constitutes a little commonwealth, whose affairs are
administered by a general assembly of all the villages, which usually meets four
times a year. Every village has its mosque and school, frequented by students f roja
far and wide. Lying close to the Algerian frontier, and serving as a refuge for
rebels and deserters, Figuig has naturally a political importance out of all pro-
portion with its size and population. The natives emigrate in large numbers.
They are said to be excellent builders and skilful miners, and their women occupy
themselves with dyeing, weaving, and embroidering cotton and woollen textiles. A
few Jews reside iu the oases, but they are forbidden, " under pain of death," either
to lend money or acquire land or houses.
Figuig lies near one of the future highways of the Sahara. But here the vital
point is Igli, at the junction of the Guir and Zusf ana, whose united waters form the
Wed Saura. The oasis at the confluence forms an indispensable caravan station,
where converge the main routes from Algeria, Marocco, and Twat. Igli is inhabited
by members of the Dui-Meni andUlad Sidi-Sheikh tribes. Between it and Figuig
the largest palm groves of the Zusf ana Valley contain about one hundred thousand
dates belonging to the rich Beni-Gumi tribe, vassals of the Dui-Menias.
Social Condition of Marocco.
It is impossible, says Hooker, to speak too highly of the natural resources oi
Marocco. It enjoys all the advantages of a mild climate, abundant water, fertile
408 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
soil, varied products, and happy commercial position between two seas at the angle
of a continent. Although under the same latitude as Algeria, it far exceeds that
region in its general physical prerogatives. With the exception of a few tropical
species, Marocco might cultivate all plants useful to man, while its mountains are
as rich as those of Spain in mineral deposits. Yet how little does this favoured
land count in the general balance of nations ! But in few other countries are the
inhabitants more enslaved by a Government with boundless arbitrary power.
Fortunately most of the inland Berber tribes have been able to maintain their
independence, while in the seaports the Sultan's officials are held in check by the
European consuls. Thus is explained the fact that the Government, although
at times aided by drought, locusts, and cholera, has hitherto failed to transform the
coimtry to a desert.
Nevertheless it would be unfair to repeat with many writers that this " African
China " is barred from all progress. The reports of travellers show that during
the last half-century great changes have taken place. Europeans traverse without
risk the whole of the settled parts ; they easily find teachers of Arabic, and the
former fanatical hatred of strangers has in many districts given place to more
friendly sentiments. If it is still dangerous to travel among the Berber tribes,
this is due not to their jealousy of the foreigner, but to their mistrust of all visitors,
regarded by them as spies.
Marocco is being gradually brought within the sphere of European influences.
Every sQiiport has its little colon}' of traders, and in Fez there are no less than five
himdred Spaniards, for the most part, however, renegades or deserters. Politically
protected by the mutual rivalry of the Western Powers, Marocco is being gradually
cj^nqucred by international trade. There is not a Berber village in the Atlas or
the southern regions bordering on the Sahara in which the tea introduced by tho
English from China has not found a market.
Agriculture — Industries — Trade.
Agriculture, oldest of industries and the slowest to change, has been but little
modified in its traditional methods. The exportation of wheat and barley being
foil)iddcn, the cultivation of these cereals so well suited especially to the province
of Gharb, makes little progress, while the area under maize, pulse, and other grains
whose export is permitted, continually increases. But no vegetable species has
recently been acclimatised ; nor has any effort been made to introduce European
animals, or improve tho native breeds by crossings. The export of horned cattle is
limited to a few tliousands to each of the West European states, while that of sheep
and horses is still rigorously interdicted.
The native industries, specially protected by the Government, have been better
preserved than in any other ^lohammedan country. The carpets, textiles, Marocco
ware, arms, glazed faience, arc still produced according to t|he traditional jn-occsses,
and some of these products, such as the white haiks with silken warp and fine
woollen weft, arc extremely beautiful. But the heavy duty of 10 per cent, is not
,(&
m
INDUSTEIES— TEADE.
409
sufficient to exclude foreign goods from the Marocco markets. The lines of
steamers plying on the seaboard, the caravans obtaining theii* supplies in the
interior, all tend to further the industrial revolution in progress throughout the
empire. Far more rapid must be the changes as soon as the country is opened up
by a regular system of communications. At present the ambassadors proceeding
from Tangier to Fez usually take twelve to fourteen days to accomplish this short
jonrney of 120 miles ; and although the projected railway from Fez to Lalla
Maghnia has been arrested by diplomatic difficulties, the barrier of seclusion along
the Algerian frontier must soon yield to outward pressure. ■»
The two nations that have developed the most extensive commercial relations
Fig. 187.— A School in Fez.
with Marocco are England and France, the former absorbing about half of the
whole foreign trade of the country. But to the share of France should also be
added the brisk contraband traffic that has sprung up between Tlemcen and the
borderlands. In virtue of the Madrid Convention, signed in 1880, the right of all
foreigners to hold property is fully recognised. But the purchase of land can only
be made with the preliminary consent of the Government, a consent which is never
granted.
Except in the towns Vhere foreigners are settled, the changes effected in the
habits and ideas of the people are not sufficiently pronounced to reveal themselves in
the local institutions. The schools of the interior still continue to teach little
AFRICA I.
€ e
410
NOETH-WEST AERICA.
beyoud the cbantiug of verses from the Soran, although the standard of public
instruction is gradually rising, thanks to the increasing relations with strangers,
temporary emigration, the pilgrimage to Mecca, and the example set by the Jewish
schools established in some of the large towns since 1862. In 1884 these were
attended altogether by eleven hun-
Fig. 188. — Froxtiees of Aloeeia and Maeocco.
Scale 1 : 950,000-
55°
dred and fifty students, receiving
their education in French, which
has become the cultured language
of Jewish and European society,
No papers however are yet pub-
lished anywhere, nor are works any
longer composed in Arabic.
Polygamy is as rare as in
Algeria, except amongst the
grandees, who are obliged by their
position to keep a large harem.
The Emperor has hundreds of
wives, and every Friday a new
bride is said to enter his household.
The old forms of slavery still exist ;
and although the traffic in white
captives was formally aboKshed in
1777, the stream of Negro slaves
still continues to flow from the
Sudan across the Sahara to the
very gates of the European con-
sulates in Tangier. Their public
sale is officially interdicted, but of
late years the trade has more than
doubled, and the mutilation of
children is still practised by all
the dignitaries of the empire.
Government — Administration.
The sovereign, a member of the
Tafilelt Shorfa family, whence the
title of "his Sherif Majesty," is
absolute master, as far as permitted
by the Koranic law. Even of
this law he is the interpreter, being at once temporal ruler and spiritual guide
of his subjects. His imperial will is thus the only law. He may condescend
to take counsel and act tlirough agents ; but he has no ministers, in the strict sense
of the word. Nevertheless he need but turn his gaze towards Tangier to
HI
^'x -^t<^ '<^ 4
'V i\ Sidi AVssa
iW9
/' Khena§ el-Had|a '
\J ' Ten let el-Sassi
P^iO' V/esi of Greenwich \°W
154-^
IS Miles.
GO VEEN AIENT— ADMINISTEATION. 411
understand how greatly his power is henceforth limited by the mere presence of the
Fisr. 189. — Fez— Gateway of the Kasbah.
foreign consuls. The Portuguese order of "the Tower and Sword" still reminds
412 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
the natives tliat the conquest of Fez and its towers continues to be the goal of their
northern neighbours. The empire is even already invaded by Spain, Avhich possesses
strono-holds on the seaboard and has secured a firm footing at the Mediterranean
entrance of the Strait. On the Algerian side the frontier is well defined, at least
alon'T its northern section, nor does France hold any enclave within the Marocco
borders. But this conventional line, coinciding with no natural, strategic, or
ethnical limits, has already been repeatedly violated by French detachment,s in
pursmt of hostile tribes, such as the Amurs, Beni-Iznatens, or Sidi-Sheikhs.
Eno-land also has in her turn played the part of a protecting power, often subsidising
the imperial Government, and in 1860 even preventing the victorious Spanish
armv from advancing against Tangier. The very treaties of commerce have been
dictated, so to say, clause by clause, and the Cape Spartel lighthouse, at the threshold
of the empire, has been built by the foreigner and is maintained by the European
consuls. The Sultsn is well aware that he has no longer the strength to withstand
the will of Europe, and that the best security for the permanence of his rule lies in
the mutual rivalries of the Great Powers.
The consular jurisdiction is at times extended to the Mohammedans themselves.
Natives in litigation vdth a European must plead before the protecting consul,
and abide by his decision. On the other hand, foreigners under like circum-
stances appeal to the cadi ; but if dissatisfied with his judgment, they may bring
their suit before the emperor, that is, indirectly before their respective ambassadors.
Bu\ the local administration of justice is a much more summary affair. The
sentences, or rather judicial acts of vengeance, are incrediblj'^ barbarous and cruel.
If the penalty of death is rarely inflicted, the victims only suffer all the more, being
"reserved for a slow physical agony. In the State prisons they are often confined
with the neck passed through an iron collar obliging them to maintain a standing
position day and night. Many of these prisons are foul dens where they are
forgotten and left to perish of hunger. Thieves have sometimes their hands closed
for ever, the nails penetrating the Hve flesh through slits made with a knife, and a
fresh skin gradually spreading until the hand grows to a stump. More ordinary
punishments are the bastinado and fines, always imposed by the cadi, from whom
there is no appeal. The supreme judge of the empire is the Cadi of Fez, generally
a member of the imperial family appointed by the Sultan. He selects the district
cadis, who in their turn nominate those of the various tribes or communes,
without reference to their superiors.
Army.
The army is recruited somewhat at haphazard. In principle, each tribe forming
the makhzen or mihtary section of the population is bound to suppl)' one man for
every hearth. But in practice the kaids called on to furnish troops seize all
vrithin their reach, sending them in chains to the ranks, where they remain for
lif(! unless redeemed by a substitute. The forces thus raised fonu a total of
2/>,(X)0 men, of whom 7,000 are infantry ; but in time of war the Sultan could raise
probably 40,000 infantry and an equal number of horse. At present (1898) the
FINANCE— ADMINISTEATIYE DIVISIONS. 413
regular forces, which are always quartered at the capital where the Sultan happens
to reside, comprise about 10,000 Askars or disciplined infantry, under the command
of a British officer, and 400 disciplined cavalry, besides ?.000 irregular cavalry and
a few batteries of field guns. The formerly dreaded Abid Sidi-Bokhari, " Slaves
of the Bokhara Lord" (so called because when formed in 1679, they were placed
under the invocation of a Bokhariot " saint "), constituted a sort of Praetorian
Guard, a menace to the sultans themselves ; and, although now dispersed through-
out the provinces, they still hold nearly all the high military posts. They are
largely employed as tax-gatherers, hence are everywhere the terror of the natives.
The guides, when asked by travellers in abandoned districts the cause of the
desolation, reply laconically, " The locusts or the makhzeni." Badly clothed,
badly equipped, badly commanded, and without discipline, the native troops are,
nevertheless, excellent soldiers, brave under fire, sober, patient, industrious, and
intelligent.
Finance — Administrative Divisions.
Marocco is one of the few countries which have no public debt, or which have
at least a revenue amply sufficient for all requirements. But strictly speaking
there is no budget, what is known by this name being simply the emperor's private
purse. His income is derived not only from his domains and the "presents" of
all sorts offered to their sovereign or protector by the towns, tribes, and communes,
but also from the regular taxes levied on the land and live stock, the judicial fines,
the custom-house duties, the profits of the tobacco and other monopolies. The
expenditure, almost wholly absorbed by the army and the court, scarcely amounts
to half the receipts, so that a large annual STun remains to the credit of th^
treasury.
After the Spanish war, Marocco undertook to pay an indemnity of £4,000,000
for the ransom of Tetuan. To meet this charge, half of the customs, averaging
about £280,000, were assigned to Spain, whose agents are armed with the right
•of inspecting the imperial custom-houses. A fourth of the same dues is secured to
the English bankers, who served to negotiate the treaty of peace with Spain ; lastly
the remaining fourth goes absolutely to the Sultan.
The only national coin minted in Marocco is a small copper piece valued at
about a third of a farthing. But the ordinary medium of exchange is the douro,
that is, the five-franc piece.
For administrative purposes the empire is divided into aniaJats, or districts
governed by amils, or kdids. The vassal tribes also receive a representative of
the Sultan, either as master or envoy, according to the degree of submission to which
they are reduced. In 1880, at the time of Lenz's visit, Marocco was divided into
forty-four amalats, of which thirty-three were in Fez and Marrakesh, and nine in
the Wed Sus and Tafilelt regions. According to Erckmann, the more or less inde-
pendent tribes are admijiistered by three hundred and thirty kaid.s.
CHAPTER XI.
THE SAHARA.
^^HE tepm Sahara (Sah'ra) meaning a vast plain, waste, or wilderness,
appears to have no very precise value. It is a geographical expres-
sion applied by various writers to an aggregate of regions to which
very different superficial areas are^assigned. In its general accep-
tation it comprises the almost waterless and very sparsely inhabited
zone which separates the Barka plateaux and the Mauritanian uplands from the
countries watered by the Senegal, the Niger, the affluents of Lake Tsad, and the
headstreams of the "White Nile. But where are we to draw the line of separation
betweea the " Greater Africa " and the region which has been called the " Lesser
Africa " ? According to some writers, its northern limit skirting the foot of the
Atlas merges eastwards in the shores of the Syrtes, thus embracing the whole of
T^-ipolitana and coinciding at one point with the Mediterranean seaboard. But
account is more us\:ally taken of the political frontiers traced to the south of the
Barbary States, and many tracts which in their physical aspect and climate present
features common to both zones, are thus excluded from the Sahara and comprised
in the Mediterranean basin.
Extent — Population.
The natural limits of the Sahara are indicated both by the nature of the soil and
the shifting phenomena of its climate. "Wherever regular rains cease to fall, the
desert begins. But no fixed barriers can be assigned to the movement of the
moisture-bearing clouds. In their relation to the arid zone they advance to a
greater or less distance, gaining or losing ground according to the cycles of years
or centuries. "Where no precise boundaries are laid down by mountain ranges such
as the Atlas, or by river valleys such as the Nile, the transition from the Sahara to
the surrounding regions is effected through intervening zones of varying breadth.
Noi- have all the frontier lands yet been accurately explored, so that its outlines
can only bo approximately indicated on the maps.
Li its widest extent the Sahara covers an area almost as large as Europe itself.
From east to west, that is, from the banks of the Nile to the Atlantic seaboard, it
stretches for a distance of IJ.OOO miles, with a mean breadth of perhaps 900 or
PEOGEESS OF DISCOVEEY. 415
1,000 miles north and south, from the foot of the Atlas to the Sudan. Yet, com-
paratively short as is the journey in this direction, how laborious and full of
dangers for caravans slowly advancing under a fierce sim, in the midst of blinding
sands, beguiled by the glittering mirage, tormented by the fear of finding dried-up
springs at the next watering station ! Excluding the oases of Barka and Kufra,
Tripolitana and Fezzan, the smaller " Saharas " of Tunisia, Algeria, and Marocco,
together with the grassy zone skirting the fertile regions of the Sudan, the super-
ficial area of the Great Desert may be roughly estimated at 2,480,000 square
miles. The whole population of the various oases, isolated uplands and humid
depressions scattered over this vast extent is supposed not to exceed five hundred
thousand souls.
Progress of Discovery.
As in the days of Herodotus and Strabo, the journey across the Sahara is
always a laborious undertaking, probably even more so now than at that epoch, the
ground having become more arid, rivers having dried-up, and forests disappeared
during the last two thousand years. The descriptions of the old writers are doubt-
less exaggerated, as they needs must be at a time when explorers were unaided by
scientific instruments, and when their reports, passing from mouth to mouth, at
last merged in fable. Libya, south of the Mediterranean, was regarded as a land of
fire, uninhabitable by men, beasts, or plants, where the very soil was calcined.
Nevertheless, journeys of exploration and military expeditions made it evident that
these " torrid " regions were not inaccessible. Herodotus relates the adventures of
the five voung Nasomons who had ventured into the desert in the direction of the
zephvr, and who after many days' journey reached a city in the country of the
Blacks, situated on a great river. But whether this was the Niger at its great
bend in the Timbuktu district, or Lake Tsad, near the mouth of the Komadugu,
or some other afiluent, cannot now be determined. In any case, these Libyan
pioneers had crossed the Sahara, judging at least by the direction followed by
them, and the detailed account they give of the river peopled with crocodiles and
flowing from west to east.
Without getting so far, the Roman captains had also penetrated far to the
south, for Cydamus and Garama still preserve the remains of their monuments, and
Suetonius Paulinus had surveyed the valley of the "Wed Guir, probably a tributary
of the stream reached by the Nasomons. But how many other armies, how many
caravans, were long ago lost in the wilderness, consumed by the burning sim, like
the running waters gradually absorbed in their sandy beds !
Since the close of the last century, when the Society for the Exploration of
Africa was founded in England, the routes of European travellers across the Sahara
have been carefully traced on the map. Even those of Jewish and Arab traders
have been followed and attached to the network of scientific exploration. The
Sahara has already been traversed at several points from north to south ; but no
traveller has yet made the complete journey in the direction of its length from the
banks of the Nile to the shores of the Atlantic. The reader will remember the
41 G NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
expedition of Rolilfs and his associates, who after vainly attempting to perform
the first stage of this route from the Dakhal to the Kuf ra oasis, were compelled
to stop short and turn northwards between the parallel lines of dunes leading to the
Siwah oasis. Even the coast of the Sahara between Capes Bojador and Blanco is
one of the least known on the African seaboard, although now annexed to the
possessions of a European power.
The few meshes of the network traversed by explorers occupy altogether an
extend of little over 200,000 square miles. Consequently when we speak of tlie
Sahara, we cannot exclaim with Columbus, " How small is the earth ! " While
elsewhere the world grows less, subdued by steam ; while highways are everywhere
being constructed and the transport service accelerated, the Sahara remains as
difficult of access, as formidable as ever. If the ocean links opposing continents,
the desert almost completely separates the neighbouring lands. North and south
of the intervening sands, the animal and vegetable kingdoms differ specifically,
and the races of mankind present the sharpest contrasts in their origin, appearance
and usages. On the Mediterranean seaboard, as in Europe, the populations have
been frequently renewed by great waves of migration : Vandals have come from
the west after making the circuit of a continent ; Arabs have penetrated from the
east after skirting the shores of the Inland Sea ; but across the Sahara from north,
to south there have been no great movements of population, nor even any
conquests by a single military expedition. Here the modifications of type, insti-
tutions, and customs have been effected by a slower process of penetration between
the northern and southern borderlands. The slaves imported from Sudan have
modified the Berber type in Mauritania, giving rise to the Haratins of the Marocco
oases, the Atryas of Twat and Ghadames, the Ruaghas of Algeria. The Arab
traders and missionaries have in their turn changed the religion and government of
the Sudanese populations.
Physical Aspect.
The Sahara is not a dried-up marine basin, as was supposed by geologists before
the nature of its soil and the inequalities of its relief were as well understood as they
now are. Even the low-lying tracts stretching south of the French possessions,
where some of the depressions are actually below the Mediterranean level, have
certainly been dry land throughout the Quaternarj'^ epoch. Beyond this Berber
section of the desert no remains of marine origin have anywhere been found. The
chalk and sandstone formations, the granites, gneiss, porphyries, and basalts
cropping out on its rugged surface show no traces except of weathering by the
action of sun, wind, and rains.
Throughout its whole extent the Sahara is a continental region, presenting
certain marked contrasts in its physical aspect, and containing considerable tracts
to which the term desert can scarcely be properly applied. Like the other parts of
Africa, the Sahara has its highlands, its valleys, and running waters, although
mainly consisting of vast uniform plateaux, stony wastes, and long ranges of dunes
rolling away beyond the horizon, like the billows of a shoreless sea. Hero is the
PHYSICAL ASPECT. 417
true wilderness, a region destitute of flowering plants or shrubs, without birds or
butterflies, exposed only to the blind forces of heat and the winds. According to
a summary estimate, the horizontal and ravined plateaux occupy about half of its
whole extent ; a ninth is covered with sands, while the rest is shared by the rocky
highlands, steppes, eroded depressions, oases, and strips of cultivated borderlands.
Zittel estimates its mean elevation above the sea at 1,100 feet.
Notwithstanding the differences of relief, a character of unity is imparted to
the Sahara throughout its whole extent, chiefly by the scarcity or complete absence
of water everywhere except in the hilly districts, where the higher summits pene-
trate to the upper atmospheric currents. For the origin of the Sahara has to be
sought, not in the ground itself, but in the aerial regions above. Its creation must
evidently be traced to the same causes that have given rise to analogous desert
wastes in the Asiatic continent. It is, in fact, merely a western prolongation of the
almost treeless tracts which traverse Mongolia, Kashgaria, Turkestan, Irania, and
Arabia, interrupted at long intervals by watercourses fringed with trees, or by
moimtain ranges and verdant upland valleys.
To the prevailing dry winds is due this long desert zone with its parallel strips
of bordering steppelands, obKquely crossing the eastern hemisphere for a space
of some 7,000 or 8,000 miles. To these Asiatic and African wastes Humboldt has
given the collective name of " track of the polar winds," as if the aerial currents
which in the tropics become the trade vdnds regularly followed the line traced in
white sands across the two continents. This view, however, is not quite correct.
The general atmospheric movement from the North Pole towards the equatorial
regions does not follow such an oblique direction as is here indicated. Although
deflected towards the south-west by the rotation of the globe, it is far from being
always regularly directed east and west along the axis of the Sahara, parallel with
the equator. The meteorological observations made in the Sahara itself and on its
borders show that the normal direction is from the Mediterranean southwards.
Except in the eastern parts, and in the Tuareg territory, where, however, they are
very variable, the prevailing winds are not those which come from the east or
north-east after losing nearly all their moisture on the long journey across the
Asiatic continent. Nevertheless the direction of the prevailing currents in the
Sahara sufl&ciently explains its arid character. In Asia the polar winds, whose
moisture has been precipitated on the Altai, Tian-Shan, Turkestan, and Anatolian
highlands, bring little or no rain to east China, Irania, and Arabia. For the same
reason the dry winds from Europe are unable, during the short passage across the
Mediterranean, to take up a suflicient quantity of vapour to supply the African
continent. Their slight store is exhausted on the northern uplands, leaving little
for the southern regions of the Sahara, where scarcely any rain falls except in the
month of August, when the sun is at its zenith.
The general aspect of the desert bears evidence of great changes, which can be
due only to the action of jvater. Large wadies with their banks and flats preserve
the record of running streams in these now arid regions. Deep gorges excavated
in the rocky plateaux also speak of the erosions caused by torrents and streams
418 NOETH-WEST APEICA.
which have carried away the soil, distributing it in thick alluvial deposits over the
plains. Then flourished the forests whose petrified stems are still ^^sible in
nianv parts of the desert ; then lived the elephant and rhinoceros figured on the
sculptured rocks in the Fezzan, Algerian, and Marocco highlands ; then the caravan
routes were slowly traversed by pack oxen, since replaced by the camel. The
rivers frequented by the crocodile are now dry, and all the large fauna have dis-
appeared with the forests which afforded them a refuge. ,
Nothing remains except a few flowing springs, and to obtain water, wells must
be'ounk in likely spots well known to the skilled eye of the nomad. But even this
water is mostly brackish and disagreeable to the unaccustomed palate of the
traveller. On arriAing at the Dibbela wells, the first on the route from Lake Tsad
to Fezzan, the people coming from the south, where good waters aboimd, always fall
ill. But arriving from the north, after they have gradually become habituated to
the taste of the dcssrt waters, those of Dibbela seem well flavoured. The same
phenomena of desiccation observed in the steppes and deserts of Central Asia and
South Russia, have taken place in the regions south of the Atlas, only here the
zone of regular rains appears, perhaps by a process of compensation, to have been
enlarged at least in the southern districts of the Sahara.
The Dunes.
But iiowever this be, the changes now going on are due almost exclusively to
the action of sun and winds, and to the alternating temperatures. The great
geological transformation of solid rock to shifting dunes is entirely the result of
rai;teoric agencies. As soon as the softer rocks present an aperture through which
the outer air can penetrate, the work of disintegration has begun. Dolomites,
gypsums, and sandstones begin to crumble, and are slowly changed to sand or
dust, the surface of the rock gradually corroded, leaving here and there the
harder core, which thus develops into pyramids or pillars standing out in the
midst of the sands. The argillaceous strata are attacked in the same way, every-
where crumbling away except where preserved by the binding action of the roots
of tamarisks and other shrubs.
<.)ncc disintegrated, all this debris, whether of gypsum, limestone, silicious, or
clay origin, immediately begins to move. Wafted far and wide by the winds, it
contribut(\s to form in the depressions those argillaceous deposits which resemble
tlie "yellow earth " of China, but which, for lack of the vivifying waters, are
unable to yield the rich crops of that region. The particles of quartz, varying in
size, are also borne from station to station, and deposited in the form of dimes,
which are incessantly modified and displaced by the diverse action of the aerial
currents. Thus the dunes are obviously of recent or contemporary formation, due
to the peculiar influences of the Saharian climatic conditions.
Tin; hypothesis has been advanced that, after being formed b)-^ the disintegra-
tion of the rocks, the dunes remain on the spot. Tliey certainly do not travel as
rapidly as might be supposed by those who have seen how they are at times blown
THE ERGS— IGUIDI. 419
about by tbe storm, filling tbe atmosphere with dense clouds that darken the sun.
In the presence of these sandstorms, almost as dangerous as those of snow, the
traveller recalls the legends of caravans and whole armies swallowed up by the
advancing billows of sand. But after the storm has passed the general aspect of the
landscape is found to have undergone little change. The hillocks are still in their
places, and seem to have been scarcely modified in their main outKnes. But a
sii^gle day counts for little in the history of the earth, and even during the
contemporary period examples are not wanting to show that if most of the sand-
hills remain or reform in the same place, others occasionally get shifted. The
guides often point to hillocks occupying the site of some former depression along
the caravan route. That such displacements must take place is evident, unless we
suppose a perfect equilibrium of the atmospheric currents. But such an equi-
librium does not exist, because the winds blowing from the Mediterranean are
known to predominate in the Sahara. In many districts the 'ixposed spaces reveal
a rocky ground, evidently of different geological origin from that of the surface
sands. Thus the chalk plateau south of the Mzab territory is covered here and
there with dunes brought from the great western reservoir of sands. East of
El-Golea M. RoUand recognised two such shifting ridges about 30 miles long, with
a mean breadth of over 2 miles.
But such formations cannot be developed in all places, the direction of the sands
being necessarily influenced by the relief of the plateaux, the valleys and depres-
sions, the aerial currents. Shifting from dune to dune under the action* of the
wind, the fine particles of dust are at times swept into heaps, like the drift snow
in sheltered spots. But elsewhere sandhills are met which have been permanently
fixed or bound together by the roots of trailing plants, and near the oases it migkt
be possible to arrest the progress of the dunes by planting drin and other species
which flourish in such a soil.
The Ergs — Iguidi.
The principal sandy regions are the great Libyan desert, between the Egyptian
oases and the Tibesti highlands, the two Ergs, or " veins " of the Berber Sahara,
the Edeyens of the Tuareg territory, the Iguidi, west of the Wed Saura, the
Maghtir and Adafer dunes, and others surrounding the Jvd, north-west of
Timbuktu. Of all these sandy regions, the best known is the eastern Erg,
comprised between the Wed Igharghar basin and the Red Hamada, which has
been several times traversed by European travellers proceeding to Ghadames.
Here the slow progress of the dunes lies in the direction from north-west to south-
east, as shown by the present position of the great ridges relatively to the original
centres of disintegration.
In the western Erg the movement is eastwards to the chalk plateaux ; in the
Wed Righ and in Wargla, northwards to the oases ; in Iguidi, mainly from the
north-west to the south-east, under the influence of the oceanic monsoons.
According to M. Duveyrier, the normal direction for the whole of the Sahara
420
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
would appear to be from the north-east to the south-west, in accordance with the
general course of the trade winds.
In the eastern Erg some of the crests are much higher than those of the
French dunes on the Gascony coast. The Ghurd El-Khadem, measured by MM.
Laro-eau, Say, and Lemay, has a height of 450 feet, and others are said to reach
490 feet, within 40 of that measured by Vogel near the " Lake of Worms," in
Fig. 190.— The Great East Eeq.
Scale 1 : 120,000.
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31°
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4,400 yards.
Fezzan. Duvcyrier saw sandhills in the eastern Erg over 660 feet high, and
Largeau speaks of one attaining a vertical elevation of 1,650 feet. But their
extreme altitude cannot be determined until the Sahara has been more completely
surveyed. Seen from the neighbouring hills, those of the Erg present the appear-
ance of enormous ocean waves suddenly solidified. „
Besides the troughs between the sandhills, in several places deep depressions
have been developed, resembling the craters of volcanic cones. Such is the Ain-
CLIMATE OF THE SAHAEA. 421
Taiba cavity, about 60 feet deep, wdth a circuit of from 500 to 600 feet, which is
flooded and fringed with sedge. In the vicinity is a similar formation partly
choked with sand. In several places stony concretions are found, attesting the
former presence of mineral springs which have long disappeared. But among the
stones scattered over certain regions of the Sahara there are many the origin of
which has not yet been explained. Such are the crystals in the form of pyramids,
stars, or crosses, the chaplets, " fish scales," and blackish nodules varying in size
from a cherry to a hen's egg, hollow inside or filled with sand. Such also are
those vitrified silicious tubes usually about 12 inches long and terminating ir, a
sort of hard core. They occur in such large numbers in the southern parts of the
Air district that they cannot be regarded as of meteoric origin. The Sahara
is altogether a vast field in which geologists have still many things to discover.
In the Iguidi and certain parts of the Erg districts the phenomenon of the
" singing sands " is not unfrequently heard, as on the slopes 9f the Serbal in the
Sinai highlands, and elsewhere in the Asiatic deserts. The deepest silence is often
suddenly broken by a vibrating sound like that of a distant trumpet, lasting a few
seconds, then dying away, and again breaking out in another direction. This is no
hallucination, for it is heard by animals as well as men, many of whom, ignorant of
the cause, are stricken with fear by this mysterious " music of the sands." The
effect is evidently due to the crumbling or friction of myriads of molecules from
time to time yielding to upward pressure. But it still remains to be explained why
the phenomenon is not heard in all parts of the sandy regions, but rest'iicted to
certain districts. This, again, may perhaps be due to the different constitution or
crystallographic nature of the vibrating particles.
Climate of the Sahara.
These vast sandy tracts are the best evidence of the extreme dryness of the
climate. As observed by Carl Eitter, " The Sahara is the south of the world,"
although situated entirely north of the equator, and although Mascat, Aden,
Tajura, and some other spots on the surface of the globe have a higher average
temperature. A characteristic feature of its climate is the enormous oscillation
between the extremes of heat and cold. While the sands are heated to a tempera-
ture of 170° F., and even 190° F. in the sun, or from 136* F. to 146^^ F. in the
shade, the radiation at night lowers the glass to 26° or 28°, that is, from four to
six degrees below freezing-point. Such is the intense drjniess of the atmosphere
that fogs are almost unknown, although a slight dew gathers occasionally on the
plants about sunrise, either after rainy days or during any abrupt lowering of the
temperature. In this atmosphere destitute of humidity, arms never rust and flesh
never becomes putrescent. Heavy showers are extremely rare, and in the Tuareg
country ten or twelve years pass before the watercourses are flushed and vegetation
renewed by a tropical dgwnpour.
Limited north and south by two zones of regular rainfall, the Sahara presents
no fixed laws for the recurrence of its meteorological phenomena. It forms a sort
422 NORTH-WEST AFEICA.
of neutral zone, in whicli the normal succession of the aerial currents is suspended.
One of the most dreaded winds is the sirocco, which blows from the south, often
accompanied by whirlwinds of sand. These dense volumes of reddish dust sweep
over the desert like sheets of flame and with the velocity of tornadoes, now rising
into the upper regions, now grazing the surface of the ground.
The Caravan Eoutes. •
rThe moving sands, the long stony hamadas, the torrid heats followed by
sudden returns of cold, the pestiferous winds, the dust-storms, the " cloudless skies
and shadeless earth," the vast distances, the long intervals between the wells — at
times dried up, at times held by hostile tribes — all tend to enhance the perils of the
route, and to explain the solemn earnestness with which caravans equip themselves
for the journey across the wilderness. The profession of guide, hereditary in certain
families, constitutes a sort of priesthood, for this person holds in his hands not only
his own life, but that of all committing themselves to his guidance. At the
departure of the caravan he meets with homage, mingled with entreaties ; on its
safe arrival he is overwhelmed with thanks. In the most monotonous regions he
is familiar with the slightest landmarks indicating the route to follow. The
smallest plant, traces on the sands invisible to others, the atmospheric currents, all
help to direct him along the right track or warn him of impending danger. He
consultscthe fleecy cloudlet, and in the neighbourhood of the oases follows with the
eye the long flight of the swallow and other birds of passage. Even unaided by
sim and stars, he knows the right direction, and unerringly points to the precise
qijarter of the horizon leading to the wayside stations, and to the habitations of
man on the verge of the desert. "When he belongs to a race Avith complexion grey
as the sands, or red as the. soil of the hamada, he lays his garments aside and rolls
naked on the groimd, the better in this disguise to reconnoitre passing strangers
and ascertain whether they be friend or foe. He knows the exact position of every
oasis, of every pool or puddle, of every spring or well ; the path along the trackless
desert is traced in his memory from station to station, and when compelled to
follow a new route experience must aid him in determining the right course.
It happens at times that well-known highways become lost, either by the
invading sands filling up the wells, or by hostile hordes seizing the stations along
the route. Then the memory of the abandoned tract gradually fades into vague
tradition, and in the popular imagination it becomes an earthly Eden, Thus was
pictured the " Little Wau," before this long-lost oasis was rediscovered by the
Arab explorer, Mahommed Tarhoni of Zella. The natives of Tibesti have
lost the route followed by their forefathers across the Libyan desert to Egypt, and
still speak of some delightful intervening oasis, where the sparkling waters murmur
beneath the shade of the palm groves.
On the other hand, the caravans of "Wadai struck out fresh trade routes towards
Tripolitana in the years 1811 and 1813, although these highways have remained
neglected for many decades. But even were the journey acros? the Sahara every-
NATURAL DIVISIONS— ENNEDI—WAJANGA. 423
where less laborious, the desert routes must become every year less frequented,
since the trade of Europe has begun to penetrate into the interior of the continent
by the great arteries of the Senegal and Niger, By these changes the desert must,
so to say, remain outflanked until the Twat oasis becomes attached to the projected
railway system between the French possessions on the Mediterranean and Atlantic
seaboards. At present the total yearly traffic across the Sahara can scarcely exceed
£80,000.
>
However shrewd and careful the guides, however patient and enduring the
camels, disasters are still unfortunately far from rare. Whoever strays from the
path is lost. A prey to hunger and the still more terrible thirst, he is presently
seized by some master- thought overriding all reflection ; in his hallucination he
fancies himself at the bottom of some dark pit, or ceaselessly climbing some steep
hillside. When at last he lies down, his eyes are closed in death, and his body, around
which rises a little dune, becomes rapidly dried up. To ensure their mutual safety,
the members of the caravan must keep close together, or at least within sight and
hearing of each other. Any lagging behind may prove instantly fatal, as was
shown in such a terrible way during the second expedition sent by the French
to Wargla for the purpose of surveying the route of the future trans-Saharian
trunk line. According to the customs and institutions of the various tribes
inhabiting the oases and confines of the desert, this necessary sense of solidarity in
the caravan is differently understood. In many Berber clans, accustomed to self-
government end recognising no master, the group of travellers constitutes a common
jemaa or assembly, in which each gives his advice and fulfils his special function
for the common good. But the Arab convoy is ruled despotically. Here the
khebir is master, and all must obey. Under his orders are the shaush who
interpret his will, the shuaf who watch the land, a khoja who " keeps the log," a
crier who announces all decrees, a muezzin who calls to prayer, and a priest who
" reads the service."
Natural Divisions — Ennedi — Wajanga.
The natural divisions of the Great Desert are indicated by such mountain
ranges or uplands as Tibesti, Tassili, and the Jebel Ahaggar. Were there a suffi-
ciently heoNj rainfall, these highlands would constitute water-partings for so many
distinct fluvial basins draining to the Nile, to the Syrtes, to the Atlantic or the
Niger,
The eastern basin, specially designated by the name of the Libyan desert, has
probably no uplands except some isolated sandstone rocks and sandhills, such as
those lying along the route of travellers between the great bend of the Nile and
Kordofan. No mountains have anywhere been detected on the distant western
horizon, nor have any watercourses been found indicating the presence of high
ranges likely to attract rain-bearing clouds. Judging from the natural incline of
the borderlands round the margin of this vast basin left still a blank on our maps,
it would appear to slope gently northwards in the direction of the Egyptian oases.
But the Dar-For highlands, many of whose crests exceed 3,500 feet, are con-
424 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
tinued towards the north-west by a low ridge separating the Nile basin from the
waters flowiii«' in the direction of Lake Tsad. Here begins the line of hills and
plateaux which crosses the desert obliquely for a distance of about 1,200 miles, as
far as the Twat oases and the Wed Saura.
A first group of rocks and hills constitutes the land of Ennedi, known also by
other names to the Arab and native travellers. Its valleys, which give rise to a
few wadies, are inhabited by members of the formerly powerful Zoghawa nation,
who also roam the steppes of North Dar-For, and who in the twelfth century ruled
cfyer the whole region comprised between the Nile Valley and the highway from
Fezzan to Bornu. A few thousands of the Dar-For Baele or Bideyat people also
occupy several of the Ennedi valleys, where some Tibbu tribes from the north-west
are tolerated by the rulers of the land. But no European traveller has yet pene-
trated to Ennedi, which is known only from the reports of native traders.
North-westwards the line of uplands is prolonged in the direction of the axis of
the Sahara, enclosing the Wajanga (Wanjanga, "Wanja, Onja) oasis, which has
also not yet been visited by any European explorer. It is known from the accounts
of traders that the surrounding hills are quarried for the rock-salt contained in
them. From the Wajanga oasis the tableland slopes gently northwards in the
direction of the palm groves of Kufra.
TiBESTI BORKU.
The range of mountains known to the natives by the name of Tu, that is, the
" Rocks," and usually called Tibesti by the Arab travellers, to the inhabitants of
the southern plains of Borku presents the appearance of a regular rocky cliff
bounding the northern horizon. This range, which is about 300 miles long, or 420
including its less elevated offshoots, was known only by name till the year 1869,
when Nachtigal undertook a dangerous journey to its northern district. The
attempt which he subsequently made to approach it from another direction, and
there more accurately determine its physical constitution, proved unsuccessful.
He however came within sight of the mountains, and was at least able from a
distance to survey some of their chief crests.
In southern Tibesti the principal mountain group is Kussi, which, according to
Nachtigal, probably exceeds 8,300 feet in absolute elevation. He was informed by
the natives that here the water freezes almost every year, and that the local breed
of camels are covered with a thick coat, like those of the Mediterranean seaboard.
The dominating summit is a cone of volcanic appearance, and, following the
descriptions of his informers, Nachtigal speaks of a "natron grotto," which also
contains large deposits of sulphur. Two thermal springs also flow at the foot of
the mountain.
The Tarso, a northern group of hills traversed by Nachtigal, certainly contains
a large number of volcanoes. In this district Tibesti risjes above the surrounding
plains in the form of abroad tableland about 3,300 feet high, and of very easy access,
above which are scattered numerous emi, or hills, some isolated, others disposed in
EASTERN SAHARA and CENTRAL SUDAN
5° 10" 15'
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TIBESTI— BOEKU.
425
ranges. All are eruptive cones, whicli have risen above the crevasses of the plateau
while covering the original sedimentary rocks with lavas and ashes. Over the
slopes is strewn a fine layer of grit, as pleasant to walk on as the sandy paths of a
garden.
Mount Tussideh, the culminating cone in this district, rising to an elevation of
over 8,300 feet, shows on one of its slopes a secondary cone which formerly emitted
Fig. 191. — Routes of the Chief Exploeees in the Easteen Sahara..
Scale 1 : 20,000,000.
ecr
Est dfj {jreenw'icW
Deptlis.
0 to 3,200
Feet.
3,200 Feet and
upwards.
300 Miles.
smoke. Near the southern talus, about 1,000 feet below the summit, lies the mouth
of a crater, which according to Nachtigal has a circumference of " three or four
hours," with a depth of over 160 feet. From the level surface of the ground at its
mouth the fall is sudden -at first, then diminishing gradually towards the bottom.
Ridges of black lava converging from the circumference to the centre are separated
from each other by intervening lines of saline efflorescence, resembling the streaks
of snow in the crevasses of a mountain cirque. The centre of the crater is occupied
by a small volcanic cone, which also terminates in a basin fiUed with a whitish
substance called " natron " by the Tibbus.
AFRICA I. f f
426
NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
TliG volcano and the crater at its foot are not the only indications of former
io-neous action in the district, now ahnost quiescent since the disappearance of the
ancient inland waters that washed the western foot of the hills. A thermal spring,
famous throughout the eastern Sahara, flows in a ravine east of the main range,
some thirty miles to the south of Bardai, the chief oasis in Tibcsti. This spring,
known as the Yerikeh, or " Fountain," in a pre-eminent sense, is said to be so hot,
and to emit such continuous jets of steam, that it cannot be approached. The
reports of explosions are also incessantly heard in the midst of the vapours.
Ij'achtigal was not permitted to visit this hot spring, which was described by the
Fig. 192. — NOETHERN TiBESTI.
Scale 1 : 3,000,000.
60 Miles.
natives as their " only wealth." They doubtless feared he might obtain by magic
art the gold mines supposed to be concealed by the jins in the neighbouring rocks.
The cavities in the immediate vicinity are filled with deposits of sulphur.
Although the breadth of the Tibesti range cannot yet be determinied, it seems
certain that towards the central part it shows a development of over 60 miles
transver.sely to its axis, from the plain of Borku to the Libyan desert. On the
whole, the southern slopes are less abrupt than those on the opposite side. Ilere
begins the broad plain which stretches away without perceptible incline in the
direction of the Kufra oases. Towards the north-west the range is interrupted by
wide depressions, separating from each other some groups of steep or even inacces-
sible rocks. One of these, to the north-west of Turso, is composed of sandstone
blocks, which assume the most varied architectural forms — Roman amphitheatres,
Byzantine churches, frowning fortresses. Interspersed among these more regular
structures, which have a mean elevation of about 200 feet, are the fantastic outlines
of men and animals.
I'arther on, along the same north-westerly prolongation of the Tibesti range,
rise the mountains of Abo, 1,830 feet high, followed successively by those of Afafi,
CLIMATE— FLOEA— FAUNA. 427
whose higliest peaks attain an altitude of 2,320 feet, and, lastly, those of Tummo,
standing at about the same elevation. The last-named, however, form rather a
hamada intersected by watercourses, than a group of mountains in the strict sense
of the term.
Tummo, which merges in the southern plateau of Fezzan, constitutes a limestone
tableland, overlaid by a layer of blackish sandstone. It is furrowed in all directions
and cut up into separate blocks, which assume the appearance of towers. The
tabular surface of the plateau, covered here and there with a layer of clay and
shingle, is almost perfectly level, with a slight general incline in the direction frohi
north-east to south-west. Through the Biban, or " Gates," one of the depressions
in the Tummo uplands, runs the most frequented trade route across the desert,
leading from Murztik in Fezzan to Kuka on the west shore of Lake Tsad. Caravans
coming from the south usually spend several days in this delightful spot, where all
find abundance of pure fresh water, springing in five streams from the foot of a
sandstone cliff. The steep sides of the rocks are here covered with names and
inscriptions, and round about the camping- grounds have been accumulated vast
quantities of camel droppings, yielding an inexhaustible supply of fuel for the
passing convoys.
Towards the west the Tibesti hills fall gradually down to the plains. But in
the south-west the surface is broken by sandstone heights of fantastic form, leading
to the deep valleys of Borku, whose main axis runs parallel with that of the Tibesti
highlands. The lowest parts of these longitudinal depressions stand at an jAsolute
elevation of scarcely 660 feet. They are separated by intervening white, red, or
violet limestone rocks from the Bahr-el-Ghazal, or " Sea of Gazelles," till recently
a vast lacustrine basin, but now dried up. Even some parts of Borku belong tft
this depression, which communicated through a narrow channel with Lake Tsad,
forming between the river basins draining towards the sea, the Nile, Niger, and
Congo, the true centre of the African continent. Sweet or brackish waters bubble
up in the hollows of the Borku district ; but some of the valleys have no springs
visible on the surface, which is often covered with alum. The oases are also
threatened by some ranges of sandhills, formed by the disintegration of the sur-
rounding sandstone rocks.
Climate — Flora — Fauna.
Most of these rocks are bare and arid, without scrub or mosses. But for the
little rain that yearly falls the whole country would be absolutely uninhabitable.
The clouds gather chiefly in the month of August : consequently Tibesti belongs in
respect of its climate to the Sudanese zone, the slight rainfall occurring in summer
when the sun is at the zenith. Rains of a few hours' duration suffice completely to
flood the narrow rocky valleys, where nothing is lost by infiltration. The torrent
born of a shower rushes wildly down the slopes, in its impetuous course sweeping
away the domestic animg,ls, goats, sheep, at times even the camel. After it has
passed, the valley again becomes dry, but the pure water is retained in the fissures
of the rocks and in deep caverns, around which are grouped the habitations of man
428 NORTH-WEST AFEIOA.
and his cattle. A little grass and a few shrubs spring up in the hollows, wherever
the moisture can be stored ; acacias also of various species, and one or two other
plants, develop here and there a few thickets of stunted growth. In Tibesti is
found the northern limit of the higlik, or " elephant tree " {balanites ^gijptiaea),
and of the bifurcating dum-palm. The date grows in a few favoured ravines, but
viclds an indifferent fruit, never in sufficient abundance for the local requirements.
In a few places where the rocky soil is covered with a little vegetable humus, ^the
natives cultivate wheat, the Egyptian durra, and the dukhn of Kordofan.
^ The poverty of the Tibesti fauna corresponds with that of its flora. The only
wild animals are the hyocna, jackal, fox, sable, the wadan and other antelopes,
besides some cynocephali, who feed on the acacia, and are respected by the Tibbu
hunters, believing them to be " bewitched human beings." The ostrich has become
rare ; but above the hilltops still hover the vulture and raven, while flocks of doves
whirl round the bare rocks. Swarms of pigeons also frequent the thickets of
Borku. But domestic animals are necessarily rare in a region where the few human
habitations are scattered over a vast area. Amongst these oxen appear to have
been formerly included, for Nachtigal discovered sculptures representing them led
by bridles twined round their horns. Now, however, the ox has entirely dis-
appeared, and only a few horses still survive in the Domar Valley, south of the
main range. There is an excellent breed of camels, resembling those of the
Ahaggar Tuaregs, with long legs, swift and surefooted in cKmbing rocky hills, but
more difficult to feed than those on the Mediterranean coastlands. They are well
cared for by the Tibbus, who also possess a hardy breed of asses, some slughi-
hounds, and short-haired goats of good stock. The broad-tailed sheep of Egypt
&nd eastern Mauritania is unknown in Tibesti, where it is replaced by a magnificent
species with long legs and tail, covered with a thick coat of black fleecy wool. Of
their skins the natives make splendid ^vintcr robes.
Inhabita^tts of Tibesti — The Tibbus.
The Tibbus, or rather Tubus, according to Nachtigal, are the " Men of Tu,"
that is, of the rocks, and their Arab name, Tubu Reshadeh, is merely a repetition
of the same designation, Reshad having the meaning of " rock," or " mountain."
The Tibbus, called also Tedas in the north, are in fact essentially rock-dwellers, and
a largo number are even troglodytes, inhabiting natural caverns, or else spaces amid
the boulders roofed in with branches of the palm or acaeaa.
The Tibbus range over a vast extent of the Eastern Sahara, where they arc the
dominant race from the southern part of the Kcbabo oasis in Kufra to Fezzan, and
from Wajanga to Kawar, on the route between Murzuk and Kuka. Their domain
thus exceeds 200,000 square miles in extent. The race appears to have imdergone
a general displacement in the direction from north to south. At least they formerly
possessed the Kufra oases, where they now hold only a few poor tributary villages ;
their settlements have also become rare in Fezzan, whereas in the south their
emigrants have established themselves in large numbers in Kanem and Bornu.
1 1. C; ,1'J
INHABITANTS OF TIBESTI— THE TIBBUS. 429
But ever since the name has been known to the Arabs, the centre of their power
have been the mountains of Tibesti, the country of " rocks." In these highlands
they have dwelt probably from the remotest times, for no warlike expeditions ever
penetrate to these isolated uplands. Here they are surrounded on all sides by
deserts of difficult access, far removed from all the great caravan routes, and holding
out little attraction to aggressive or marauding tribes.
For any other people suddenly transported to these barren highlands existence
would be absolutely impossible, so deficient is the country in supplies. Even for
the natives, certain valleys, amongst others those opening towards the north- wesi),
are quite uninhabitable. In this arid region scarcity is the normal condition for
months together. After the summer rains the goats find the necessary pasture, and
then yield in abundance the milk which forms the staple food of the Tedas. They
also gather the berries of certain plants, raise a few crops, and collect the fruit of
the dum-palm, elsewhere held in small account. Nor is eve^ the coloquintida
despised, which mixed with various ingredients to remove its bitterness, is ground
to a flour and kneaded with dates, in this form constituting one of their chief
alimentary resources. During the date season the Tedas resort to the palm groves
to gather the *' fallings," which are the common property of all, or to purchase
provisions in exchange for animals, arms, and woven goods. Meat they rarely eat,
never killing their animals except when old, diseased, or woimded ; but then the
whole carcass is consumed. After being dried in the sun, it is pounded with stones
80 as to crush the bones and soften the sinews. The very skins are eaten, and
during Nachtigal's visit the shoes stolen from him while asleep served to regale
some daring thieves. Condemned by the scarcity of supplies to a life of extreme
frugality, the Tedas can nevertheless occasionally consume enormous quantities of'
food without any inconvenience ; but such gastronomic exploits are censured by all
who pride themselves on their good manners.
Almost constantly living on such a frugal diet, the natives of Tibesti are
naturally far from stout ; nevertheless aU are robust and surprisingly agile. - The
stranger is amazed to see them bounding along, and keeping pace with the
swiftest camels during forced marches of several days. Mostly of middle size, they
are perfectly proportioned in all their limbs, except the hands and feet, which seem
rather too small. The complexion is lighter than that of the blacks of the southern
plains, nor do their features present the flat nose, thick lips, or other marked
characteristics of the true Negro. The hair is longer and less crisp, and the beard
fuller than that of the Sudanese peoples. Their women are charming while still in
the bloom of youth, unrivalled amongst their sisters of North Africa for their
physical beauty, pliant and graceful figures.
Amongst these hardy highlanders diseases are rare, the Guinea worm, the
Abyssinian tenia, the leprosy so common amongst the Arabs, the affections of the
liver so prevalent in most hot countries, infectious fevers and dysentery, so dreaded
on the African coastlands, being disorders almost unknown in Tibesti. They are
also exempt from syphilis, scrofula, rickets, and all epidemics except small-pox.
Without being absolutely unknown, diseases of the chest are at all events extremely
430 NORTll-WEST AFEICA.
rare, probably more so than amongst any other people, thanks to their forced
sobriety and life of hardship, passed mostly in the open air. The Tedas resist
liuno-cr for days together ; when lost in the desert without food or water, they pass
the day in the shade, travelling only at night. If they come upon the bone of a
camel it is pounded to a sort of paste, which they mix with blood drawn from the
veins of their mounts. Their last resource, when the stupor of hunger begins to
creep over them, is to lash themselves firmly to the back of the animal and tru^. to
its instinct to discover the nearest camping-ground.
' No less remarkable than their physical strength and beauty is the shrewdness
and intelligence of the Tibbus. Necessity, the great educator, has developed their
mental faculties while sharpening their senses. They find their way across the
trackless wilderness by a sort of inspiration quite unintelligible to the European,
and in all ordinary transactions they display surprising tact and skill, combined
with great eloquenoe, cunning, and invention. Those who settle as traders in the
surrounding oases easily get the better of their Negro or Arab competitors. Even
their characteristic personal vanity never leads them so far as to lose sight of the
main chance. The severe struggle for existence has rendered them harsh, greedy,
and suspicious, sentiments reflected in their hard features and cruel expression.
" Everyone for himself," seems to be stamped on the countenance of the Tibbu,
who is seldom seen to laugh or unbend with his associates. The national feasts are
not, like the Negro merrymakings, enlivened with song and dance, but serve rather
as the pretext for rival extempore recitations and verbal contention. The Tibbu is
always distrustful ; hence, meeting a fellow-countryman in the desert, he is careful
not to draw near without due precaution. At sight of each other both generally
Stop suddenly ; then crouching and throwing the litzam over the lower part of the
face in Tuareg fashion, they grasp the inseparable spear in their right, and the
shangermangor, or bill-hook, in their left hand. After these preliminaries they
begin to interchange compliments, inquiring after each other's health and family
connections, receiving every answer with expressions of thanksgiving to Allah.
These formalities usually last some minutes, during which time they take the
opportunity of studpng their mutual appearance, and considering the safest course
to be adopted towards each other.
In their usages the Tibbus betray the various influences of the different races-
Negroes, Arabs, Tuaregs — with whom they come in contact. Like the Shilluks of
the White Nile, they mark the temple with a few scars ; like the Tuaregs, they
wear the veil, in any case required by an existence passed in the dusty and parching
atmosphere of the desert ; lastly, with the religion of the Arabs they have also
adopted many customs of that race. But fundamentally they seem very probably
to belong to the true Negro stock. They are the kinsmen of the Dazas, who dwell
farther south in Borku and in the districts bordering on Lake Tsad. The two
languages are related, and also closely allied to that of the Kanuri, who occupy the
western shores of the lake, constituting a distinct lingui.^tic family, of which the
dialects of the Baelcs and Zoghawas on the Dar-For frontier arc outlying members.
Of this group the oldest and most archaic appears to be that spoken by the Tedas,
INHABITANTS OF TIBESTI— THE TIBBUS.
431
or northern Tibbus, who may consequently be regarded as the typical representa-
tives of the race. In any case they are the least mixed, the inhabitants of Tibesti
being perfectly homogeneous, and entirely free from intermixture with Arab or
Berber immigrants. But this remarkable race, one of the most important in North
Africa, at least for the extent of its domain, and altogether one of the most
characteristic groups in the human family, is numerically one of the most insignifi-
cant on the continent. According to Nachtigal, the whole nation can scarcely
comprise more than twenty- eight thousand souls, of whom not more than twelve
thousand are scattered over the extensive Tibesti uplands. *
Fig. 193.— BoEKXT.
Scale 1 : 2,300,000.
<?
17°
u o'P l:)reen\A/icW
P0°
Villages.
o Springs.
30 Miles.
The Dazas of Borku are even still less numerous than the kindred Tedas of
Tibesti, although their territory might support a far larger population. Nachtigal
estimates them at five thousand at the utmost, while the nomads of the same region,
mostly belonging to the Bulgeda nation, may number, perhaps, from five thousand
to seven thousand. Partly agriculturists, partly stockbreeders, the Dazas and
Bulgeda differ little from the Tibesti highlanders. Like them they arc thin,
energetic, and intelligent, usually exempt from disease, but less favoured with
physical beauty. In this respect they form, from the ethnological standpoint, the
transition between th«i Tibbus and the true Negroes bordering on Lake Tsad.
Their speech also resembles that of the Tibbus, Zoghawas, and other branches of
this group. The Dazas score the temples with two vertical incisions scarcely
432 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
differing in appearance from those used by the neighbouring peoples, yet sufficient
for the experienced eye to recognise their true origin. The Dazas have also
the custom of removing the uvula and the first incisors from their children at a
very early age.
Both Tibbus and Dazas are supposed to have been converted to Mohammedanism
about two or three centuries ago. They are very zealous Mussidmans, and recite
the daily prayers with great regularity. At the time of Nachtigal's visit in 186p,
they had already been brought imder the influence of the Senusiya, and some of
the/ii had imdertaken the difficult journey to the "VVau oasis in order to \dsit the
branch of the order there stationed, consult them on questions of dogma, and appeal
to their decision on points of law. If the Dazas are frequently described as pagans
by the neighbouring tribes, the reason is because under this term of reproach the
good followers of the Prophet feel themselves justified in plundering them without
remorse and reducing, them to slavery. At the same time there can be no doubt
that a few superstitions — that is to say, some survivals of the older religions — still
persist amongst them. Thus sacrifices continue to be made in honour of the
springs ; spells, also, of pagan origin, besides verses from the Koran and amulets
derived from their Semitic neighbours, are still in use ; while many of their religious
observances resemble those practised by the heathen populations of Sudan. The
blacksmiths are much dreaded as potent magicians, and at the same time regarded
as outcasts. No Tibbu with any sense of self-respect woidd ever give his daughter
in marriage to a worker in iron, or even condescend to treat him as a friend. The
word " smith " is one of the most insulting in the language ; but it is never
applied to those follo^\ing this industry, the people being careful not to abuse
or effend them in any way through fear of some supernatural vengeance.
The Tibbu social system is not based on the principle of equality. Every
\'illage has its dardai, or chiefs, its maina, or nobles, and its common folk. At
the same time, the upper classes have practically very little power, the unwritten
law of custom being the true sovereign. They neither keep any troops to enforce
their decrees, nor maintain any system of taxation by which they might surround
themselves with sycophantic retainers. But they act as judges in all cases not
requiring to be settled by the law of vendetta ; they also discuss questions of peace
and war, and their counsel is generally received with respect. The only privilege
enjoyed by many of the nobles over their inferiors is the empty glory of being able
to boast of their " blue blood."
Nor is the family governed more despotically than the community. The wife,
who is generally distinguished for the domestic virtues of order, cleanliness, good
management, and fidelity, is held as an equal by her husband. Even the polygamy
authorised by Islam is seldom practised, although temporary emigrants usually
contract a second alliance in foreign lands. Marriage is commonly preceded by a
long period of betrothal, which is held to be as binding as the marriage tie itself.
At the death of the groom the betrothed is united to his brother or nearest relative.
As amongst the Kafirs and several other African peoples, the change of state
produced by marriage is an event of such importance that all must keep the secret,
TOPOGEAPHY. 433
the wife especially being forbidden by social etiquette to make the remotest allusion
to tbe subject. She neither addresses her husband in public, nor eats with him ;
nor has he on his part any longer the right to let his glance fall on his father-in-
law or mother-in-law. In fact, he ignores his wife's relations, and is even required
to change his name, like those guilty of murder.
^ Topography.
The chief centre of population in Tibesti is Bardai, situated in a valley on^he
north-east slope of the mountains, about the middle course of an enneri, or wady,
which after receiving several tributaries flows northwards in the direction of "Wau.
The thermal waters of the famous Yerikeh, or " Fountain," belong to the basin of
this torrent. Around Bardai stretch the most extensive palm groves in Tibesti ;
hence this district is visited by nearly all the Tedas in search of dates. They also
frequent the surrounding hills with their flocks, and most of their traders hold
commercial relations with Murzuk in Fezzan. Others migrate to the southern
oases of Borku and the neighbouring territories ; but they have lost the route to
the mysterious Wadikur oasis, which lay five days' journey to the south-west
of Kufra, and which is described in legend as aboimding in a rich vegetation.
Like all the oases the route to which has been forgotten, it is a " paradise
lost."
In Borku, oases fed by sweet or brackish waters fill all the depress^ns, and
yield better dates than those of Tibesti. The dum-palm also flourishes, and several
Sudanese plants might here be successfully cultivated. But at the time of
Nachtigal's visit the gardens were mostly abandoned, the palm groves in majjy
places invaded by the sands, the villages forsaken by their inhabitants, and their
huts made of matting overturned by the wild beasts. The Aulad-Slimans, and
even the Tuaregs of the western steppes and the Mahamids of Waday, pay regular
.; visits to these oases, plundering the granaries, capturing women and children,
slaying all who resist their attacks. Thus deprived of all their effects, the Dazas
either set to work again, or else take to marauding in their turn in order to collect
enough money to ransom their enslaved families, whom fresh razzias may presently
again sweep into bondage. Their existence is that of wild beasts beset on all sides
by hunters.
In Borku the largest and best-defended oasis is Wun, which lies in one of the
southern river valleys draining through the Bahr-el-Ghazal basin to Lake Tsad.
At the palm groves of Wun begins a line of little-known oases stretching away
between two parallel mountain ranges towards the north-west.
The Oases along the Fezzan and Lake Tsad Route.
The great caravan route between Murzuk and Lake Tsad, which must sooner or
later be replaced by the 'locomotive, is the most important of all highways crossing
the Sahara from north to south. Here the space between the two cultivated zones
43t NORTH-WEST .iFRIOA.
is not only shorter than in any other part of the desert, Fezzan being distant less
than GOO miles from Kanem, but it is also occupied- by several oases, such as the
Kawar o-rouj), following in succession along the route. Hence this commercial
hio-hwav forms a natural parting line between the eastern section of the desert, of
which Tibcsti is the central mass, and the western division, occupied by the heights
of ^Ur. Nor is the ethnological limit between the Tibbu and Tuareg populations
far removed from this chain of oases. It oscillates a little to the west, shifting to
and fro Avith the vicissitudes of the chronic warfare maintained by the hostile
border tribes.
After crossing the " Gates " leading southwards from the southern plateaux of
Fezzan, the caravans enter a reddish plain, which slopes imperceptibly in the
direction of the south. The Gates stand at an elevation of about 2,160 feet, or 1,250
above Lake Tsad (910 feet), towards which the trade route runs almost in a straight
line, and which is distant 570 miles. But this absolute incline of 1,250 feet is
unequally distributed. Relatively more considerable in the northern part of the
plateaux, it gradually falls almost to a dead level in the central region of the desert,
where a unifonn altitude of from 1,170 to 1,330 feet is maintained across four
degrees of latitude. The undulating plateau rolls away in great billows, above
which appear on the horizon regular tables of sandstone and limestone formation.
Here and there in the dreary waste are seen a few groups of arid cliffs, which seem
burnt up or still burning, so fiercely are the solar rays reflected from the glowing
surface. * The few hollows occurring in the rocky or argillaceous ground between
the cliffs or sandhills contain somewhat more moisture than the surrounding
spaces, and here are foimd the only permanent or temporary wells occurring along
the track of the caravan route.
The largest of these depressions are occupied by a few oases, such as that of
Yat, called by the Arabs Sahiya, or the "joyful," which runs east and west for a
distance of 12 miles, and nearly 2 north and south. The traveller arriving from
the vast plains absolutely destitute of vegetation might be tempted to speak of Yat
as a "forest," so striking is the contrast presented by its thickets of wild dates,
acacias, and grassy glades with the surrounding sands. The diim-palm also grows
in great abundance in this oasis, where it reaches its northern limit in this direction.
The Yeggeba oasis south-west of Yat is much smaller and less peopled, while
lliat of Siggcdim, although abounding in dates, was no longer inhabited at the time of
Xuchtigal's visit in 1870. But that of Jebado, situated to tlie north-west, is occupied,
like Yat, with Teda and Kanuri communities. It has been once only visited by a
European in 1862, when this last station of the Tedas and their Kanuri kinsmen in
the direction of the west was traversed by Beurmann.
Kawar.
Kawar, separated by a stony hamada from Yoggeba, sti'etchcs in the direction
from north to south for a distance of about 50 miles. The caravan route traverses
it from end to end between a long avenue of palms interrupted hero and there by
KAWAR.
435
sands and rocks. Immediately to the east stretches a rocky ridge parallel with the
oasis, and in some places rising to a height of 330 feet. Perhaps from this rid^-e
Kawar takes its Teda name of Enneri Tugheh, or the ** Valley of Rocks." Most of
the twelve hamlets dotted over the de-
Fig. 194.— Kawah Oasis.
Scale 1 : 1,700,000.
2cr
\,,.^
20"
"^^^^h's of jof^eSM
<""%
-■■■•■""'■" v;;^^
pression belong to the Tibbus. They
stand at the foot of a sandstone block
with vertical walls, which serves as a
place of refuge in case of sudden attack.
The stronghold is pierced with galleries
and underground chambers used as
stores for provisions. Cisterns are also
excavated in the live rock, and a sort
of stairs or inclined plane formed with
trunks of palms gives access on the
outside to the summit of the citadel.
The villages, inhabited chiefly by
Kanuri immigrants, are built in the
same manner as the towns of Haussa,
being regularly laid out with houses
lining the straight streets, and the
whole surrounded by a common enclo-
sure. Thus was constructed, probably
in the eleventh century, the town of
Dirki or Dirko, capital of the entire
oasis. Garu, a more populous place
at the southern extremity of Kawar, is
also built in the style of the Sudanese
towns, and most of its inhabitants are
of Kanuri origin.
The beauty of the Teda type has
not been impaired by crossings. In
the Kawar oasis the women are dis-
tinguished by the same regular features
and well-balanced forms as their Tibesti
sisters ; but they have over and above
a graceful carriage, soft expression,
and charming smile. The feasts are
more cheerfully celebrated, the proces-
sions and cavalcades more sumjDtuous than in the eastern highlands. Nor are the
customs the same along this great caravan route as in the more sterile and secluded
native hills of the race. The dardai, who more frequently takes the title of mai, or
" king," exercises real authority over his subjects. But he finds a rival power in
the person of the mkaddem of the Senusiyas, who resides at the convent of
Shimedru, not far from the capital.
■ i«>''t77,. . ■: ■ wiU:-: • ; •, ■, • \«flSOIf .
'iy^
... . m
'fefeV ^;
Oitais of Zhou A^<!r)jirtf;jtif- ai-^^
^^H<^l'C'l^l■■^is>■v ■
;x«,.
15° E ^ of Greenwich' t5°30'
30 Miles.
436 NOETH-WEST AFEICA.
The inhabitants of Kawar are also subject to other masters, the redoubtable
Aulud-Sliman Arabs, who after long sojourning on the steppes of the Tripolitana
coast, have sought other pastures and other fields of plunder in the neighbourhood
of Luke Tsad, Hereditary foes of the Tibbus, they often suddenly sweep down on
the Kawar oases, slaying the men, carrying off women and children, and retiring
laden with booty. The villages remain unpeopled for a time, but a short period of
peace suffices for fresh immigrants to come and occupy the empty houses. At the timQ
of Nachtigal's visit the dwellings scattered over various parts of the oasis would
have* afforded homes for a population of six thousand ; but all the inhabitants
numbered no more than two thousand three hundred.
The Bilma Salt Pans.
It cannot be said tli,at immigrants arc attracted to the oasis by its fertile soil or
abundant crops. The dates of its palm groves are of poor quality, and the inhabi-
tants scarcely venture to occupy themselves with field operations. But the
advantages derived from the transit trade through this important station, midway
between Murzuk and Kuka, are sufficient induoement to settlers, notwithstanding
the dangers they run from Arab marauders. Kawar also possesses a local treasure,
which secures it customers from a large part of the Sudan. These are its saline
lakes, many of which surround the capital towards the centre of the oasis and one
of which sivarms with " worms " {artemia adne?/i)\ike the Bahr-el-Daud in Fezzan.
But the most productive salines are those situated in the Bilma district, that is, the
northern part of the oases, in which is situated the town of Garu. Here the salt
basiv.s are very shallow, and divided into compartments by clay walls, like the
" bosses " in the French saline lagoons. Through the effect of evaporation, crystals
are formed on the surface of the water, which mingling with the sand and dust
brought by the winds, soon constitute a greyish incrustation differing little in appear-
ance from the surrounding soil. On the bottom is precipitated another layer of salt,
which is collected and divided into lots according to its quality, for the use of men
and animals. Afterwards it is fashioned into blocks of various forms, a camel-load
of which is bartered for about four shillings' worth of corn. In the Sudan markets
this price is increased at least thirtyfold.
No doubt, in the various regions of Sudan salt can be procured by the combustion
of certain plants and by several other processes. But they are all so tedious and
difficult, and the yield is of such a poor quality, that the chief supply naturally
comes from the desert. No region of the Sahara contains larger deposits of
excellent salt than the Bilma district, which accordingly attracts buyers from far
and wide. In order to welcome the strangers, the native women receive them by
throwing handfuls of salt over their clothes, as if to s?y, " The best of the land for
you . According to Nachtigal, seventy thousand camels come every year for
their load of salt at the Bilma salines, and some of the salt caravans, such as those
of the Tuareg traders with Haussa, comprise as many as three thousand pack
animals. The Tedas have a monopoly of the transport between the Kawar oasis
DIBBELA— AGADEM. 487
and the Tibesti country, while the trade with Kanem and Bornu is in the hands of
the kindred Daza tribes. But all the regions west and north-west of Kawar are
supplied by the Tuareg caravan merchants, who exercise a sort of suzerainty over
the inhabitants of the oasis, even forbidding them to cultivate wheat, in order to
keep them always dependent on themselves for this indispensable commodity.
East and west of Kawar caravan stations and settlements occur only at lonfi-
intervals. The first villages of Tibesti lie 240 miles to the east ; the distance is
600 miles to Rhat in the north-west and 420 to Agades in the Air district. On
the difl&cult route to this place, which traverses a stony and waterless hamada>, the
chief station is the Agram oasis, an outpost of the Tibbus towards the west. But
immigrants from Bornu also share the narrow settlement in the desert with them.
DiBBELA — AgADEM.
The region intervening between Kawar and the border zone of Sudan is one of
the most desolate in the Sahara. Here dune follows dune, rolling away in great
waves some 50 feet high, and all disposed from east to west, that is, in the same
direction as the regular winds of the desert. The boundless waste of shifting
sands is interrupted only at one point by the Kau Tilo, or " Isolated Eock."
After passing the small oasis of Zau, the caravan again enters the limitless
region of dunes, where for a space of 60 miles the convoys are continually ascend-
ing and descending the interminable series of sandhills. Here espepially the
camel, constantly appearing and disappearing, like a storm-tossed vessel, may best
be called the " ship of the desert." The southern limit of this region of dunes is
marked by the rocks of Dihbela, where the English explorer Warrington perished.
This point already lies beyond the limits of the Sahara properly so called, and the
traveller now enters the zone of steppes everywhere skirting the northern verge of
the well-watered Sudanese regions. Here grass grows in abundance, at first in the
depressions between the undulations of the land, then on the rising grounds them-
selves. The grey or yellowish tints of the desert give place to the verdant hues
of vegetation, and in the Agadem oasis is met the first tree which is neither a
palm nor an acacia. This is the tundub (capparis sodada), distinguished by its
twisted and gnarled trunk and its widespread hanging branches.
Few regions in the world more abound in animal life than this zone of
Saharian steppe lands. Here the gazelles graze together in flocks of tens and
hundreds, and in many places the traveller might fancy himself in the midst of
a vast park well stocked with domestic animals. He feels that he has already
crossed the desert.
Jebel Ahaggar and Surrounding Plateau (North Tuareg Domain).
West and north-west of the " Gates " traversed by the route between Fezzan
and Lake Tsad, the main axis of the Sahara is prolonged through a line of rugged
rocks, which gradually rise to heights of from 4,000 to 5,000 feet. The ravined
488 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
plateau thus developed is probably the region described by the medifcval Arab
A\Titers under the name of the Jebel Tantana. South of Rhat a narrow breach in
the plateau opens a way for travellers proceeding in the direction of Air. Nowhere
does nature assume a more forbidding and inhospitable aspect than in these wild
mountain o-orges. The absolute nakedness of these escarpments, the sombre glitter
of the blackish sandstone rocks, the fantastic outlines of the heights, without a
blade of grass or tuft of moss, all forms a picture of desolation producing on the
waj-farer a sense of awe far more impressive than the endless waste of sands them-
selves.
In the midst of these jagged cliffs, and especially in the Janet district, lying
west of the breach, a few cavities are filled with water, and according to native
report several of them harbour crocodiles. South of the plateau the route descends
)-apidly towards the plain through a series of dangerous inclines flanked at first by
sandstone walls, and farther south by granite cliffs.
Recent Expeditions.
West of the breach, which was traversed by Barth and his associates, the
moimtains and plateau are scarcely known except from the reports of the natives.
Nevertheless the northern outskirts of this region have been "sdsited by Duveyrier,
and since his memorable exploration of 1860, by the two peaceful expeditions
commanded by Flatters. Laing also skirted the same highlands in the year 1822,
at the time of his journey across the Sahara to Timbuktu, But his journal was
lost, and none of his observations ever reached Europe. RohKs travelled over
nearly the same ground as the English explorer, but from the opposite direction,
between Twat and Ghadames.
The unfortunate events attending the two expeditions to the Tuareg country
under the direction of Flatters, which were equipped to cross the desert from north
to south, are still fresh in the memory. The first, organised at "Wargla in 1880,
deviated from the route laid down beforehand, and ended by taking the road to Rhat,
without, however, reaching that oasis. "Worn out by the dilatory negotiations
with the Tuareg chiefs, and finding all their supplies and money exhausted at this
early stage of the journey, the members of the expedition were obliged to return.
A second mission, composed partly of the same officers, started the following year
in the direction of the desert. It penetrated farther south, beyond the district of
North Tassili ; but it ended in disaster. The caravan, divided into detached
groups, following each other at intervals of several miles, had been secretly
pursued to the west by a constantly increasing horde of Tuaregs ; traitors had
insinuated themselves into the presence of the leaders, offering to serve as guides,
and every preliminary measure was taken for a preconcerted attack. At the fatal
moment Flatters, overtaken while almost alone, is killed with one of his com-
l)union8, the camel-drivers make off, and the whole body of Tuaregs fall upon tho
convoy approaching from a distance. The fifty-nine survivors of the first
onslaught were compelled to break up the camp during the night, and begin their
NORTH TASSILI AND TADEMAIT UPLANDS.
439
retreat in the direction of "Wargla, 480 miles distant in a straight line, and 720
following the chain of wells. All the French members of the expedition perished
in this disastrous retreat, and thirteen men only reached Wargla, after a fearful
march of over two months, during which they had at times nothing to drink hut
blood, and nothing to eat except human flesh. Nevertheless the fact that the
fugitives were able to fight some successful engagements along the route, and gain
riany stations before being overwhelmed, is a sufficient proof of the possibility of
conducting an expedition successfully across the Tuareg territory. A caravan
Fig. 195. — Routes of the Chief Exploeees betnteex Algeeia axd the Tuaeeq Teeeitoey.
Scale 1 : 8,000,000.
ISO Miles.
properly supplied with provisions, and keeping carefully on its guard, might
certainly traverse the country from end to end. Those whom circimistances had
turned into traitors and marauders would remain faithful in the presence of
superior forces.
North Tassili and Tademait Uplands.
The plateau in which is gradually merged the Janet mountain range, is known
by the name of Tassili, a Berber word accurately indicating the aspect of the land.
This Tassili, qualified .as " Northern," or " of the Azjars," to distinguish it from
other plateaux lying to the south of Ahaggar, consists of extremely rugged
uplands, whose main axis runs in the direction from south-east to north-west, along
440
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
the line of the system beginning in Tibesti. The escarpment of the plateau, limited
to the south-west by the quaternary alluvia which constitutes the Saharian plains,
seems to be continued in the same normal orographic direction.
Towards the centre of this escarpment rises a group of heights, designated, like
80 many others in this region, by the name of Adrar, or " the Mountains," in a pre-
eminent sense. According to Duvoyrier, Mount In-Esokal, culminating point of
the system, and rising to a height of over 5,000 feet, is certainly a volcanic crest,
Fig. 196. — Geology of the Sahara South of Algeria.
Scale 1 : 13,000,000.
Meridian 0 f Ijreen wicK
m2
iliB ^
Duties and ftuateruary Miocene Upper Middle Devonian. Granite, gneiss, Basalt,
saudii. alluvia. formations. chalk. chalk. and mica schists.
300 Miles.
whose lavas have spread over the underlying Devonian formations of the plateau.
Towards the west the Tassili is cut up into isles and islct.s, while on the north side
the depressions of the wadies penetrate like gulfs and inlets into the mountain mass.
The plateau is thus divided into a number of fragments, each of which is known
by a separate name to the local Tuareg tribes.
l^gucleh, the block lying nearest to the AVcd High, is encircled on the east,
north, and west by the Edeycn, or "Sands." The Khanfusa eminence (1,940 feet),
the first Devonian rock occurring on the route from Tugurt to Idelcs, in the
JEBEL AHAGGAE. 441
Ahaggar higUands, is also a fragment of this broken plateau. West of the
depressions, through which formerly flowed the waters of the Igharghar river
system, other rugged plateaux belong to the same Devonian formation ; but they
are no longer disposed in the direction of the East Sahara highlands. The Mudir
which forms the waterparting between the Wed Igharghar and the rivers of Twat
develops a long triangular mass in the direction of the west. Towards the eastern
extremity of this plateau rises the If ettessen peak, which, like the great crest of the
Adrar system, is supposed by Duveyrier to be a volcanic cone.
North of the Devonian plateaux, which follow successively from the neio-hbourv
hood of Ehat to and beyond Insalah, all the rocky formations rising above the
alluvial plains, or which are not covered by the sands, belong to the chalk systems.
Such is the Tinghert plateau, that is, the "Limestone," a long hamada, which forms
the western and south-western prolongation of the "Eed Hamada" of TripoHtana.
Such is also the Tademait, which develops a sort of circular rampart round the
north side of the Twat oases, and unites with the plateau of El-Golea in the Algerian
Sahara. Towards the south and west the Tademait terminates in bold headlands
and steep cliffs, presenting an effectual barrier to the encroaching sands. But on
the opposite declivity the hamada slopes towards the north-east, and is here
furrowed with ravines, which are occasionally flooded with torrents flowing to the
Wed Miya. In this direction the zone of rocky uplands has in many places been
invaded by the advancing dunes. Altogether the cretaceous formations in the
regions to the south of Algeria are disposed in the form of a vast horseshoe
sweeping round the basins of the Wed Miya and Lower Igharghar.
Jebel Ahaggar. '
The chalk formations of Tinghert and Tademait and the Devonian plateaux of
Muidur and the Northern Tassili are followed in the south by the crystalline rocks
of the Ahaggar system, enclosed by isolated rocky grouj)s of the same origin.
Towards the east rise the Antief hills, whose highest peaks, from 5,000 to over
6,000 feet, were observed by Earth during his journey from Ehat to Agades ; in
the north the Eguereh plateau, where the normal granite rocks show faults of
volcanic origin ; in the north-west the baten, or " crest " of Ahenet, which is
continued in the direction of the Twat oases.
Viewed as a whole, the central group, of circular form, presents a circumference
of over 360 miles, consisting of superimposed plateaux, which rise in successive
stages from altitudes of 1,600 or 1,800 feet to over 6,600 feet above sea-level in the
region of winter snows. According to our maps, which are for the most part a
reproduction of that traced on the sands by the Targui sheikh, Othman, for his
friend Duveyrier, the Ahaggar is dominated in the centre by the culminating
plateau of Atakor, crowned by the twin Watellan and Hikena peaks.
The whole system terminates northwards in the Tifedest headland, whose last
spur, the volcanic cone oi TJdan, by the natives commonly called the " Nose of
Ahaggar," rises abruptly above the surroimding Quaternary alKmal formations.
AFRICA I. g g
442 NOETH-WEST AFEICA.
Other summits also, including perhaps the two culminating peaks, are probably
of volcanic origin, lavas and ashes spread over the underlying granite rocks. For
a long time the belief, based on the reports of the Tuaregs, prevailed that the
Ahao-o-ar also contained deposits of " black stones that burn," that is to say, coal.
But these burning stones would appear to be certain porous lavas, which are filled
with oil and lit up like lamps.
The southern Ahaggar has not yet been visited by any European explorers, and
still remains as little laiown as the plateau bordering it on the south, whiih is
indicated on our maps by the name of the Southern Tassili, or Tassili of the
Ahao-o-ars. From the reports of the Tuaregs it is known to be a rocky region,
waterless, and destitute of vegetation, carefully avoided by the caravans and nomads.
The camels which stray into these desolate uplands are said by the natives to perish
of want, or else revert to the wild state, for no one will expose his life by going in
search of them.
«
The Ahaggar TVaterparting.
Lving in the very centre of the Sahara, the Jebel Ahaggar would constitute a
waterparting for the surrounding fluvial basins, if the rainfall were copious enough
to develop perennial streams beyond the limits of these highlands. Nevertheless
there can be no doubt that the running waters descending from the Ahaggar
Mountains lose themselves beyond the upland valleys in sandy beds, which, under
different climatic conditions, formed the channels of large rivers draining in various
directions. Northwards flowed the afiluents of the Wed Igharghar ; to the south
were collected all the streams which, through the common bed of the Tafassasset,
went to swell the volume of the Niger ; the western vallej^s of the Tighehert,
Tarhit, and other rivers belonged to the Messaura hydrographic system.
It is still uncertain whether the basin of the Messaura drained to the Atlantic,
as was supposed by Duveyrier, making its way to the "Wed Draa through all the
obstacles opposed by the dunes of Iguidi, or else is a tributary of the Tighehert and
Niger, as might seem more probable from recent information regarding the general
slope of the land. But according to the barometric measurements taken by Rohlfs
in the Twat oasis, the Tighehert or Teghazert could never at any time have reached
the Niger. To do so its waters would have to ascend over 330 feet in a space of
about 480 miles. At the same time the data suppKed by a traveller, whose rapid
observations cannot be compared with those of other explorers, can scarcely be
accepted as offering a final solution of the question. The problem of the drainage
of the Messaura basin, one of the most important in African geography, cannot
therefore be regarded as yet solved.
The Igharghar Basin.
Even the Tghargliar basin, although already explored by numerous travellers,
is itself still insufficiently known ; nor can it yet be said with certainty to belong
altogether to the system of the Algerian shotts. There can be no doubt that a
Wed Igharghar takes its rise on the northern declivity of the Jebel Ahaggar,
LAKE MIHAEO. 443
flowing as a perennial stream round the eastern foot of the Udan plateau. Then,
after receiving some affluents from the Eguereh district, its course is continued
between the Northern TassiK and the Irawen Mountains down to the alluvial plains
which stretch north of the Devonian plateaux. So far its course is quite clear, and
its slope perfectly regular. Near the Temassinin zawya, at the southern foot of
the zone of chalk formations, its bed stands at an absolute altitude of 1,250 feet.
Here it is joined, if not by the waters, at least by the formerly flooded valleys,
which have their source in the central depressions of the Northern Tassili plateau.
The main outlines of these affluents of the Igharghar, the "Weds Igharo-harci^'
and Issawan, are clearly indicated by chains of dunes, high banks, windings, and
serpentine meanderings in the sands. Farther north is also distinctly seen a breach
or gorge traversing the region of cretaceous formations. But farther on the incline
soon becomes indistinct. It becomes uncertain whether its coui'se is continued
northwards, and it is impossible to say in what direction the water would flow were
the depressions again flooded. Nor in this section of the "Wed Igharghar has any
current been seen in the memory of man. What at first seems to look like a river-
bed running between banks, with a breadth varying from 1 to 6 mUes, becomes
farther on completely merged in the surface of the surrounding desert. It is a
mere succession of hollows interrupted by sandhills, and in many places the valley
has been entirely closed by the shifting sands. According to Duveyrier, the
junction of the Ighargharen and Igharghar is effected by an underground channel
flowing beneath the dunes. ,
Lake Miharo.
Nimierous lakes are scattered over the cavities in the Northern Tassili district, ,
and in the outer cirques, where the torrents take their rise. Duveyrier has
suggested that these lakes are old craters of extinct volcanoes, where the waters
have gradually collected. But this cannot at all events be the case with the meres
usually designated by the name of " Lake " Miharo, and even by the natives spoken
of as bahr, or " seas." These flooded depressions, which were visited in the year
1876 by Von Bary under the escort of a Tuareg from Ehat, are nothing more than
the hollows in the channel of a wady, where the water remains throughout the
year. When it flows in sufficient abundance from the hillside, these pools become
united in one basin, which during the diy season is again broken up into a number
of separate ponds.
In the vicinity rise some gaseous springs, which the natives have named
Sebarhbarh, or the " Garglings," from the bubbles incessantly rising from the
bottom and bui-sting on the sui'face. According to Yon Bary, the water of these
springs, without reaching the boiling-point, as asserted by the Tuaregs, is slightly
thermal, with a normal temperature exceeding 200° F. The German explorer saw
no crocodiles in the Miharo ponds, but detected very distinct traces of their
presence. These saurians, which are much dreaded by the surrounding nomads, do
not appear to exceed 6 or 8 feet in length, judging at least from the imprint of
their feet.
444 NOETH-AVEST AFEICA.
Lake Menghijg.
To the north-west, and on the same slope of the phitoau, in the valley of the
Wed Tijujelt belonging to the Ighurgharcn basin, is situated " Lake " Menghug,
which was visited by the first expedition under Flatters in the year 1880. This is
a pond, which in average seasons has a length of about 1,100 yards, with a breadth
of over 300 feet, and a depth of 12 or 13 feet. But in the dry season it falls about
10 feet, and then becomes a simple spring resembling the Sebarhbarh. After
yiieavy raius it again rises, flooding a vast cirque of dunes and watering the roots of
the surrounding tamarisks.
The French officers saw no crocodiles here, but they captured some very large
fishes, all belonging to species which are also found in the waters of the Nile and
Niger. Fm-ther evidence is thus afforded of the former existence of a much more
humid cUmate than now prevails. Large rivers flowed across vast tracts which at
present are sandy wastes ; the aquatic animals passed from river basin to river
basin, whereas now they are confined to narrow limits, and threatened with
total extinction should the waters become evaporised during exceptionally dry
seasons.
The Amadgiior Saline.
On the opposite slope of the Tassili, between that plateau and the Ahaggar
highlands properly so called, is situated an extensive sebkha, which was formerly
a great lacustrine basin. The overflow of the lake drained either south-eastwards
through the "Wed Tafassasset, or northwards to the Wed Igharghar. This saline
depression lies ahnost exactly on the line of waterparting between the Mediterranean
and the Niger basin. The Amadghor, as it is called, was visited for the first time
by Europeans during the second expedition commanded by Flatters. But the fatal
end of that mission has deprived geographical science of the maps and reports
relating to this part of the route. It is known, however, that the Amadghor
plain is very extensive, a march of five days being required to traverse it.
The saHne* being fed by the streams flowing from the Egucreh valleys and
from the Jcbel Ahaggar, probably receives a considerable quantity of water. The
salt here deposited is of excellent quality, and sufficient might be procured to
supply a population of many millions. But the exploitation of the saline has had
to ha abandoned, in consequence of the incessant tribal warfare carried on by the
surrounding Ahaggar and Azjar peoples. For the same reason the great fair
formerly held in this district has been replaced by that of Hhat. There can be no
doubt, however, that the restoration of peace in these regions would have the effect
ui restoring its commercial importance to the Amadghor sebkha, and again constitute
it a centre of trade and market for tlie caravans journeying between the Sahara
and Sudan.
Flora and Fauna.
The relative abundance of water in tlio Jebol Ahaggar naturally imparts a
fonsiderablo variety to the flora of this region. In the better watered valleys the
THE MEHAEI CAMEL. 445
acacias, especially those yielding gum arabic and other essences, develop veritable
forests. In the neighbourhood of Lake Miharo, You Bary even found thickets of
trees matted together by creeping plants in a dense mass of impenetrable verdure.
The least shower suffices in a few hours to clothe the naked soil with a carpet of
rich grassy vegetation. Duveyrier tells us that he saw vast arid tracts thus
covered in a single day with the softest herbage after a rainy night. Within
' seveA days the young grass, called " spring " by the Tuaregs, is already advanced
enough to supply fodder for the herds. ^
Amongst the common plants of the district mention is made of the falezlez, a
species of henbane, whose toxic properties increase in direct relation to the altitude
of the ground on which it grows. Almost harmless in the low-lying valleys, it
becomes dangerous on the lower terraces, and a deadly poison on the highlands,
but not for ruminating animals. Its foliage fattens the camel and goat, but is
fatal to the horse, ass, dog, and man. The cultivated flora of the Tuaregs com-
prises a very limited number of species : two trees only, the date and fig ; the vine,
and four kinds of cereals, wheat, barley, sorgho, and millet.
The lion does not appear to survive in the Ahaggar uplands, which are also
free from the presence of the panther, wild boar, buffalo, rhinoceros, and hippo-
potamus ; but the Tuaregs are familiar with the sight of wolf and hyaina. On
the plateaux and in the plains surrounding the Jebel Ahaggar antelopes are
numerous, while herds of wild asses are met on the north TassiK uplands. They
are too swift to be followed in the chase, but a few are occasionally captured by
means of snares. The wild ass is said to attack and kill the domestic species.
a
The Mehari Camel.
The margins of the sebkhas and the wooded depressions are enlivened by the
flight of a few rare birds, belonging to a very limited number of species. The
traveller may journey for a whole week in certain districts of the Sahara without
meeting a single winged creature. The Tuaregs have for domestic animals the
horse, ass, sheep, goat, slughi greyhound, and even the ostrich. Duveyrier saw
one of these tame ostriches, which was tethered like cattle left on the grazing
grounds. But the Tuaregs' special care is the camel, their most beloved com-
panion, without whose aid they would find it impossible to support existence in the
vast arid spaces stretching across the Sahara from the Wed Righ to the Niger.
It is owing to the camel that the Targui has adopted a nomad in preference to an
agricultural Kfe. In many of the upland valleys in the Ahaggar highlands, the
inhabitants might be able to live on the produce of the land. But the owner of a
camel finds it impossible to settle down in one place. He is compelled, according
to the seasons and rainfall, to move about in search of the pasturage most suitable
for his camels.
The herds consist especially of pack animals, which are occasionally equipped
for rapid marauding and other expeditions. But those intended for speed con-
stitute a special variety, the so-called nichari, in Berber arhelam, which is distiu-
44G NORTH-WEST AFEICA.
o-uished by its great height, the grace and elegance of neck and legs, remarkable
swiftness, and amazing endurance. Even when suffering pain, the mchari utters
no cry, for fear of bctraj'ing his master. In summer, when on the march and
loaded, he can hold out without food for seven days ; in winter he remains two
months on the grazing- groimds without requiring to be watered. "^Vhile the pack
aiiiiual usually advances at the rate of from 2 to 3 miles an hour, or about 15 miles
for a day's march, the mehari easily gets over the same number of leagues iii the
amie time. Fourcau mentions the case of an Insalah sheikh who covered a
distance of about 180 miles in two days, mounted on one of these mehari.
The breeding of camels occupies such a large portion of the life of the Targui,
that dozens of terms have been developed to designate the mehari at all ages, in
every condition of health or disease, every shade of colour, every state of work or
repose. The animal is trained with the most sedulous care both for war and the
course, and there are few more beautiful sights than that of a troop of mehari
equipped for an expedition, or drawn up in order of battle. The animal with out-
stretched nock and his rider with upraised spear seem at a little distance
to form a single living being of strange and formidable appearance. The
mehari reserved for the use of the women are taught to amble to the soimd of
music. When the Tuareg women came to salute the members of Flatters' mission,
one of them played some of the national airs on a kind of mandolin, while her
mount accompanied the cadence with regular steps executed with surprising
accuracy.
The Targui always directs the movements of the animal by means of his bare
, feet. Seated on the high saddle, his back resting against the support, his legs
crossed round a sort of cruciform pummel, he presses the camel's neck to the right
or left with his feet, thus keeping both arms free to handle his weapons. Ilence
in battle his aim is always directed against his opponent's feet. These once
maimed, the animal obeys no longer, and ceases to act in concert with his rider.
Formidable in war, and indispensable for all purposes of transport, the camel
contributes also to the support of the natives. Its milk is almost the only nutri-
ment of the family during the grazing season ; its hair is used to make cordage ;
its droppings serve as manure for the palms, or else, when dried, as a valuable
fuel. It is also at times led to the shambles, its flesh being reserved for the enter-
tainment of distinguished guests. Lastly its skin, one of the very best of its kind,
is utilised for the manufacture of tents, trappings, harness, and household fittings.
For the Targui, the camels are thus a source of inestimable wealth. But they are
relatively far from numerous, the most oj)ulent of these highlanders rarely owning
a herd of more than fifty head.
TiiK Tuareg Berbers.
In the country of the Tuaregs, as well as in Tripolitana, Fezzan, and the
Algerian Sahara, stone implements, and other objects dating from prehistoric times,
have frequently been found. Travellers have also discovered ancient burial-places,
THE AZJAE CONFEDEEATION. 447
which hare been repeatedly rifled by treasure-hunters. But it can be no longer
determined to what populations are to be attributed these remains of bygone
times. From time out of mind the Central Sahara has always been roamed by the
Tuareg Berbers, who were certainly in possession of the land when the Arabs pene-
trated westwards to Mauritania, and found themselves for the first time face to
face with these children of the desert. It was the Arabs who gave them the name
of Tuareg, that is to say, " Abandoned," " Forsaken of God," in consequence, say
the Arab writers, of the resistance long offered by these "Sabtcan or fetich
peoples " to the progress of Islam.
The Tuaregs, who did not accept the teachings of the Prophet till the third
century of the Hegira, call themselves Imohagh, Imosharh, Imajirhen, according
to the various dialects. The term is identical with that of the Amzighs of the
Jurjura highlands in Algeria, and of the Imazighen of Marocco, all these forms
being derived from a common root involving the idea of freecfom, proud indepen-
dence of all control. Their origin, however, is manifold, for they are " mingled
together and interwoven like the tissue of a tent-cloth, in which camel hair and
sheep's wool are so combined in one texture, that the expert alone can distinguish
between the hair and the wool." Thus speaks Sheikh Brahim Uld Sidi, reputed
the most learned of all Tuaregs.
By their alliances, the great Berber families of the Central Sahara, perhaps
originally of Sanheja stock, may claim the title of Arabs, and even of Shorfa, being
indirectly connected with the pedigree of the Prophet. The Imohaghs are clivided
into a vast number of tribes grouped in four great confederations — the Azjars
and Ahaggars or Hoggars in the north ; the Kel-Owi and Awellimiden in the
south. Collectively the Tuareg race occupies about one haH of the Sahara, and
the Temahag (Temasheg, Tamazight), as the national language is called, is spread
over a fourth part of the continent, from the oasisx)f Jupiter Ammon (Siwali) to
the shores of the Atlantic. This term Tcmaharj is itself probably to be identified
with that of the Tamahu people mentioned on the old Egj-ptian monuments of
Edfu.
The Azjar Goxfederation.
Of the four confederations, that of the Azjars, occupying the north-eastern
section of the vast Tuareg domain between Fezzan and Algeria, takes the foremost
rank, not in numerical superiority or wealth, but in general culture and refinement,
as shown by the encouragement it offers to international trade. Thanks to the
friendly influence of the Azjars, European travellers have been able to penetrate
into the interior of the Sahara, and study the physical and social conditions of that
region. Of all Tuareg peoples, the Azjars show the greatest tendency to abandon
the nomad for a settled life. One of their tribes, the Tin-Alkums, called Tizilkum
by Eichardson, have even already taken up their residence in some oases cultivated
by themselves in the neighbourhood of Murzuk and of Ehat.
Formerly the most powerful Azjar tribe was that of the Imanans, or " Sultans,"
so-called because to them belonged the amanokal, or sovereign of all the northern
448
NORTH-WEST Al^RICA.
Tuareg peoples. But at present the dominant tribe is that of the Oraghens, whose
territory comprises the vallej's of the Wed Ighargharen, Miharo, and Janet. The
most civilised appear to be the Ifoghas, who are s])ecially regarded as tlio allies of
France, owing to the protection they extend to all European travellers in their
country. Sheikh Othman, a member of this tribe, was the person who accom-
panied Laing to Insalah, and collected his papers. On three other occasions the
Fist. 197.— Taegui Type.
same sheikh escorted French travellers through his territory, amongst others
Duveyrier, to whom we are indebted for so much valuable information on the
physical and social condition of this region, lie was also the first man of his
nation to leave tlie desert and make a journey to Europe. The Ifoghas enjoy
great influence in their character of marabuts and dealers in amulets; in this
capacity they are met in all the northern regions of the Tuareg country.
The confederation of the Ahaggars, the Iloggars of the Arabs, ia far more
THE AZJAE CONFEDERATION.
449
warlike and consequently miicli more dreaded than that of the Azjars. Inhabiting
Fig. 198. — TUABEGS ON A JOUENEY.
a mountainous region, whither no one dares to pursue them, their tribes take
450 NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
refuge in these inaccessible recesses, where they defend themselves as in a strong-
hold, and whence they can conveniently sweep down on the surrounding districts.
The ruling tribe of the Ahaggars are the Kel-Rhelas, who occupy the central parts
of the plateau, the rallying-place of the whole confederation. The authority of its
araghar, or chief, is also acknowledged by all the other tribes throughout these
highlands.
The Northern Imohaghs.
Nearly all the Ahaggars are pastors, a very small nimiber occupying themselves
with agriculture. Duvcyrier estimates at thirty thousand at the utmost all the
northern Tuaregs, or a little over a thousand persons per tribe. The territory
roamed over by them has a superficial area of about 400,000 square miles, being in
the proportion of one square mile to every thirteen persons.
Most of the Tuaregrs are of tall stature, with slim figures and robust constitu-
tion. Naturally of fair complexion, they acquire a bronze tint in the sun. But
although differing little from southern Europeans in colour and the regularity of
their features, they can always be distinguished by their slow but somewhat jerky
gait, long stride, and haughty carriage of the head. Duveyrier compares their
attitude to that of the ostrich or of the camel, and attributes it to the habit of con-
stantly carrying a lance.
Some of the Tuaregs have blue eyes, and amongst the women this colour of the
iris is concidered a great mark of beauty. Amongst the Imohaghs no sickly
persons are met. The feeble, the infirm, those subject to rickets and other con-
stitutional ailments, are soon carried off, while by the law of " the survival of the
fittest" those who remain are the better able to endure a life of hardship and
resist the ravages of disease. Hence centenarians are by no means rare amongst
them. The Tuaregs arc doubtless indebted to their extremely temperate habits for
their excellent health. Amongst other terms of reproach they heap upon the
Arabs is that of being " great eaters." "While on the march they themselves take
one meal only during the day, and two while sojourning under the tents. Corn,
dates, and figs, the berry of the salvadora pcrsica, some herbs, and a little meat,
form their frugal fare. By traditional usage they are forbidden the use of birds
or fish, the flesh of these animals being reserved for the exclusive enjoyment of
the marabuts. Their most ordinary complaints are rheumatic affections and
ophthalmia, disorders easily explained by the habit of sleeping on the sands during
the night, und by their constant exposure to the action of the solar rays reflected
from the dunes. Amongst the populations of the desert, the features connected
with the organ of \'ision differ from those characteristic of the inhabitants of the
oases. Extremely dense eyebrows overshadow the ball of the eye, which is small
and deeply sunk in the socket, with very long lashes, a whitish circle separating
the cornea from the sclerotic. The whole presents a slightly reddish tint, due to
the suffused state of the blood-vessels.
In order to protect the sight from the glare of the solar rays, and at the same
time guard against the dust constantly rising from the sands, the Tuaregs have
THE NORTHERN IMOHAGHS. 451
the habit of veiling the face. The custom has at hist become a sort of religious
rite amongst the men, who do not lay aside the veil even during the night. The
reason they give for this custom is that the mouth, the organ through which
nourishment is received into the body, should be concealed. Like the Tibbus and
most of the other Saharian peoples, they have from time immemorial been desig-
nated by their Arab neighbours as the Ahl-el-Litzam, or " Veiled People." The
nobles and wealthy classes usually wear a black veil, while those of the lower
castes, amongst whom Negro blood sometimes prevails, have made choice of white.
Thus in the eyes of the Arabs the nation is divided into two classes, the " Blacks"
and the "Whites," and this distinction is precisely the reverse of that which
would have to be made if based on the natural colour of the skin. The women
never veil the face, except as a mark of respect in the presence of strangers.
Like the Arabs, the northern Tuaregs shave the hair, retaining from the fore-
head to the nape a sort of crest, which helps to support theVeil at a sufficient height
to allow the air free circulation roimd the head. When old enough to carry arms,
the men begin to wear a bracelet of green serpentine on the right arm, in order, as
they say, to give greater power to the biceps in dealing a blow with the sword.
The Targui also never lay aside the long dagger, which is fixed by a leathern strap
to the left fore-arm. The usual weapons are the lance and the sword, although
they now also make use of the rifle, stigmatised as the " weapon of treason."
The face is never tattooed, but hands, arms, and countenance are dyed blue by
means of powdered indigo. The rest of the body is clothed in the same Colour by the
blue cotton blouse and breeches, a costume very much like that of the ancient Gauls.
The women in their turn paint themselves yellow with ochre. Thus, although
naturally white, the Tuareg men seem to be of a blue and the women of a yellow
colour. No one washes, water being supposed to render the skin more sensitive to
the sudden changes of temperature. The ablu.+^ions prescribed by the Koran are all
performed in a perfunctory manner with a Kttle sand or a pebble.
The moral character of the Tuaregs has been described perhaps in too flattering
colours by Duveyrier, who naturally felt grateful for the loyal assistance afforded
him by the trusty Sheikh Othman, one of the chiefs of the Ifogha tribe. On the
other hand, the disastrous termination of Flatters' expedition and the horrors
attending it have induced public opinion to look on all Imohaghs indiscriminately
as a cruel, grasping, depraved race of cowards and traitors. But it would be imfair
to involve all alike in the censure perhaps justly applied to some. It is certam
that, as a nation, the Tuaregs are endowed with many high qualities. They arc
brave, faithful to the pledged word given to Mohammedans like themselves,
tenacious of the honour of their friends. The Targui marauder, who will make a
journey of ten days on his mehari camel in order to carry off the cattle from some
hostile tribe, will refrain from touching any deposits made by caravans along the
trade routes. The debtor and his heirs never forget their obligations, just as the
injured persons and* their children never neglect to avenge the outrage.
The traditions of the matriarchal state are still preserved amongst the northern
Tuaress. According to the unwritten code called by the Ai'abs the Beni-Ummia,
452 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
or law of the " Mother's Son," the eldest son of the eldest daughter is always
privileged in the transmission of property. At the death of a family chief, whether
nuble, marabul, tributary, or serf, his effects are di\dded into two parts, the
"property of justice," acquired by labour, and the "property of injustice,"
obtained by anned force. The former is equally distributed amongst all the
children without distinction of age or sex ; the latter reverts entirely to the eldest
son of the eldest daughter. By this ingenious arrangement the power of the great ,
feudal families is safeguarded.
"When a conquered territory has to be distributed amongst the tribes, it is
assigned to the " dowager ladies " of the nobility. Such is the traditional law,
which appears to have been followed by all the Sanheja communities in North
Africa before the Mohammedan conquest, and which has also been preserved by
several other Berber peoples, as weU as by the Tuaregs. Amongst the Imohaghs
the child always follows Sn the maternal line, their traditional law being inspired
by the sentiment embodied in the familiar saying, " It is a wise child that knows
its own father." The son of an enslaved father and mother of noble rank is noble;
the son of a noble father and female slave is a slave.
In other respects in the ordinary social relations, the woman is man's equal, and
in many cases his superior. She disposes of her own hand, the parents intervening-
only to prevent misalliances. She administers her personal fortune without being
called upon to contribute to the household expenses, hence is generally more
wealthy thap. her husband ; she brings up and controls the children ; in all festive
gatherings the place of honour is ceded to her, and at table for her are reserved
the choice pieces. But custom forbids her to take tea or coffee, delicacies set apart
for thn3 men. She is often admitted to the discussions of the tribal council, and at
times even exercises the functions of sheikh, in this position enjoying double
honours as chief and wife.
In spite of the Koran, the Tuareg women have set their faces against polj''gamy,
and no instance has been recorded of a noble or warrior who has ventured to take
a second wife. Di^M^rce is permitted, but the new bride will never cross the
husband's threshold until the fate of the repudiated wife has been formally dis-
posed of. Premature marriages, such as prevail amongst the Arabs, are unknown,
and when the Targui woman takes to herself a husband, usually at about the age of
twenty, she fully knows her own mind and knows how to make her rights be
resjjeeted. Like her husband, she may mount the mehari and journey across the
desert to visit kindred and friends, without being called upon to account for her
movements to anyone. But slio rarely abuses this absolute freedom of action ; for
according to Duveyricr's expression, the Targui woman, " very tenacious of her
riglits, is equally mindful of her duties." Nevertheless, infanticide, consequent
upon illicit intercourse, would appear to be by no means an unknown crime in the
neighbourhood of Bhat. Nor are the Tuareg ladies at all prohibited by custom
from Imving, like the chatelaines of medircval times, devotod admirers of the
opposite sex, in whose honour they embroider veils or compose diities. At the
entcrtammcnts they give of an evening, singing and accompanying themselves on
THE NORTHEEN IMOHAGHS. 453
the tobol or drum, and rebaza, a kind of fiddle, they reserve a place of honour for
those they wish to favour, and in this matter no one will ever venture to question
their choice. The Imanan women, distinguished by the title of " Royal," are the
most noted throughout the Tuareg country for their musical talent and poetic
elegance of their improvisations. Hence the men, arrayed in their finest bravery,
are attracted from far and wide to the entertainments given by these dames. Next
to warfare, the Tuaregs know no greater pleasure than that derived from their
musical feasts. When vanquished in battle, the last insult hurled at them is that
they will no longer be welcomed by the songs of their women. >
Besides cultivating the national poetry and music, the Tuareg women have also
preserved the treasure of science. Amongst the Azjars nearly all can read and
write, while scarcely one-third of the male population have acquired these rudi-
mentary accomplishments. To the women belongs also the task of giving instruc-
tion in grammar, language, and the national Tefinagh characters, which differ
little from those found inscribed on the Thugga stone, a monument as old as the
Carthaginian epoch. Nearly always travelling at night, the men are perfectly
familiar with the form and motions of the heavenly bodies. They are also past
masters in the subject of local topography ; but beyond these branches of know-
ledge they know little, and leave' all other studies to the women.
When Duveyrier brought Hanoteau's Temashek Grammar into the country, a
perfect ferment was created in the feminine world. All the ladies were eager to
see, handle, and study this marvellous work, which glorified their language, and
moreover contained collections of fables, poetry, and histories, with some of which
they were imacquainted. This grammar, with some other works of the same class,
and fragments of the Bible published in London, constitute at present the .whole
body of Temahag literature. The Berber translation of the Koran which was
formerly completed in Marocco, is stated by Ibn-Khaldun to have been destroyed
in order to prevent the word of Allah from beifig subjected to himaan criticism and
interpretations. All the writings possessed by the Tuaregs are in Arabic, in which
language all correspondence is carried on, and all spells and incantations composed.
Like the Idndred Kabyles of the Jurjura highlands, the Imohaghs of the
Tassili and Ahaggar countries show little zeal for the Mohammedan faith. The
duty of prayer they leave to the marabuts, and few amongst them are ever found
Avho practise the least religious observance. But, on the other hand, many rites
dating from times anterior to the spread of Islam have held their ground amongst
them. The cross is in the eyes of the Imohaghs a sacred emblem, and the celestial
beings are still called angehh by them.
The Targui entertains great fear of ghosts and spirits. He is careful not to
weep for the dead, lest his tears may bring them back to life. After the interment,
the tents are struck and the encampment changed, in order to put as much space
as possible between the living and the dead. The father's name is not given to the
son, as it is by th,e Arabs, but dies with the man who bore it. The marabuts
alone, who have been assimilated in religion to the Arabs, have adopted their
practice in this respect. But their silent and unconscious influence^ as might be
454
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
expected, is naturally tending to spread Arab ideas and usages amongst the Tuareg
populations. "NYhen the marabuts are appealed to as judges or umpires, their
decisions are framed in conformity Tvith Koranic principles ; but the internal
administration of the tribes and families is organised exclusively according to
Fig. 199.— IssAWAN Valley.
Scale 1 : 2,000,000.
28'
#«S
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r
f Tin Ta§hemt
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the national traditions. The sentences pronounced by the sheikhs are usually
fines and the bastinado, imprisonment and capital punishment never beino- legal! v
imposed. In cases of personal injury, the duty of blood vengeance devolves on
the outraged party.
The Twat Oases.
Twat, properly so called, is merely a narrow plain skirting the east side of the
Saura (Messaura, Messaud) river valley above the point where this stream is lost
EXPLORATION OF TWAT. 455
in the sands or mountain gorges. But in ordinary language, the term Twat, which
in Berber means " the Oases," is applied collectively to all the palm groves
scattered over the desert between the Tuareg country and the region of the great
western dunes. The Gurara district, round the north side of which these sandhills
develop a vast amphitheatre, thus forms part of Twat, as does also the strip of land
supplied with moisture by the underground waters of the Saura between Karzas
and Taurirt. Lastly, the Tidikelt oases, constituting the most extensive group of
'*cultivated territory in the whole region, is included in the same country of Twat.
It may be stated in a general way that Twat comprises the whole region of
Quaternary alluvia which sweeps in crescent form round the west and south sides of
the extensive cretaceous Tademait plateau. Its natural limits on the north side are
formed by the dunes of the Western Erg ; on the west, beyond the Wed Saura, by
the Iguidi sands ; on the south by the Devonian plateau of Muidir. The plains
thus limited are, however, divided into isolated cultivable tracts by intervening
stony hamadas and ranges of sandhills. *
Exploration op Twat.
The commercial relations are so frequent between Mauritania and Twat, the
natural centre of trade of the western Sahara, that the fullest details regarding this
region have easily been obtained through the reports of the native traders. But
hitherto very few European travellers have penetrated to these isolated Mussulman
communities. Under the escort of the Ifogha Sheikh Othman, Laing ■\'isited Twat
in the year 1826, at a time when its inhabitants had not yet any grounds for fearing
that their territory might possibly be occupied by any European Power. In 1861
the French officers Colonieu and Burin, while traversing the zone of great dunes
south of the province of Oran, entered the Gurara district. But all farther advance
in this direction was barred, and they were compelled to retrace their steps north-
wards without accomplishing their mission.
Gerhard Rohlfs was somewhat more successful, having managed in 186-1 to
spend over a month in the Twat oases, disguised, however, as a Mussulman, and
envoy of the Sherif of Wezzan. He had also taken the precaution of giving
himself an illustrious genealogy, tracing his descent back to the royal race of the
Abassides. The faithful accordingly assembled to kiss the hem of his garment, and
spread abroad the fame of his miraculous cures. He was even reported to have
restored their sight to the blind. Ten years afterwards, M. Soleillet, coming from
the north, also presented himself before Insalah ; but being neither one of the
Abassides, nor yet a follower of the Prophet, he sought in vain for permission to
enter the oases, and was fain to return with his four companions to El-Golea. Three
Roman Catholic missionaries, who followed the same route in the year 1876, were
murdered on the way, before getting so far as Twat.
Apart from the hostility of the natives, the route itself presents but few physical
difficulties. From El-Golea to Timimun in the Gurura district, the traveller need
but follow the beaten track between the region of o:reat dunes and the western
456 NOKTH-WEST AFRICA.
cscarpmeut of tlic cretaceous plateau, along the depression of the Wed j\Ieguiden,
occupied by the (Quaternary alluvia of the Saharian formations. Even along the
direct route across the plateaux from El-Golea to Tidikelt he meets wells, planta-
tions, and pasturages at stated intervals. No dunes occur on the first day's march
south of El-Golea, except for a short distance of 2| miles, and the tracks across the
hamadas and other wastes destitute of vegetation are all carefully indicated by a
regular system of landmarks. For a great part of the way, the Mejebel, that is,
the main caravan routes, are kept clear of stones and other obstructions for a normal
widtlyof from 20 to 30 feet. All the pebbles, shingle, and boulders that formerly
strewed the ground have been carefully removed and disposed in rough walls right
and left of the highway. This great work, which must have required a vast amount
of labour, dates from an unknown epoch. By the Shaanba tribe it is attributed to
a mythical being named Ben Buur, who is supposed to have flourished at a time
when Twat was still uninhabited.
Flora, Fauna, and Inhabitants of Twat.
The products of Twat differ in no respect from those of the other districts in
the Central Sahara Ijong at the same altitude and under the same climatic condi-
tions. In all these oases, as in those of Marocco and Eastern Mauritania, the date-
palm is the characteristic plant ; but with the exception of a few choice varieties,
it yields a fruit of inferior quality to that of the Suf and Tafllelt districts. But
although the palms of Twat are generally of small size, the wood is better and more
durable than that of the western plantations. In the shade of their tufted foliage
the^atives cultivate wheat, barley, and beshna, the latter yielding two crops in the
year. In the orchards are also grown pomegranates and some grapes, but in small
quantity, these fruits being generally dried up by the sun before arriving at
maturity. *
The inhabitants of Twat also raise various kinds of vegetables in their well-
watered gardens. But the yearly produce is insufficient for the local wants, so that
the natives have to supplement their stores with supplies of various kinds from the
Algerian agricultural districts. A part of the land is also reserved for the culti-
vation of industrial plants, such as cotton, henna (Lawsonia incnnis^, and korunka
(^rah tropin proccra^, a shrub, the wood of which supplies the charcoal employed in
the manufacture of gunpowder. Opium, which the natives of Twat smoke with
avidity, is cultivated especially in the northern districts, while tobacco is one of the
diicf products in those of the south.
The domestic animals are the same as in the other oases, but less numerous. In
Twat the camel is man's chief associate, both as a pack-animal and for riding.
Horses, fed like the asses, on damaged dates, are very rare, while horned cat lie
are c(»inplo(ely absent. The sheep, covered like tlic goats with a coat of hair,
resemble those of Tibesti, and full-grown poultry are no bigger than the chickens
of A\'e8tcrn Euroj)e.
According to Rohlfs, the lirst inhabitants of Twat would appeal- to have been
THE GURAEA AND TIMIMUN OASIS. 457
the Tuaregs, as is still attested by the names of the different species of dates, which
are all in the Temahag language. Like the highlanders of the Aures and Ahaggar
regions, these Tuaregs had been brought under the influence of Roman and
Byzantine civilisation, judging at least from the local names of the months, which
are all the same as those of the Latin calendar. In Twat there are, moreover, still
found some Tuareg communities of pure stock, speaking the national Berber language
exclusively, and dwelling in palm huts or under the tent.
Even among the natives who call themselves Arabs, some are undoubtedly
Berbers. Such are the Kel-Mellels, who are settled in Insalah, and who througli a
sentiment of vanity claim to be descended from the family of the Prophet. Other
Berbers, who like most of those living in Marocco belong to the Shluh branch of
the race, constitute the substratum of the popidation in the various oases, and still
speak a dialect differing little from the Berber language current throughout
"Western Mauritania. ^
The Arabs also are represented in Twat by various marabut and other tribes.
But Arabs and Berbers have all alike a strong strain of Negro blood. Few persons
are met with fair or even swarthy complexion, nearly all being very dark or black,
with broad features, but pleasant smile and soft expression. The women, who do
not go veiled, like their Mussulman sisters in the Tell districts, are very graceful
and converse freely with the men.
The people of Twat have the kindly disposition of the Negro, and are generally
esteemed for their commercial probity, respect for strangers, love of pe^^ce, and
other good qualities of the heart. But they are fanatics of an extremely narrow
type, their religious zeal exceeding that of all other Mohammedan popidation s in
North Africa. Notwithstanding the poverty of the country, as much as £2,000 is
said to be yearly collected as pious offerings for the emissaries of the Sherif of
"Wezzan, besides considerable sums contributed to other marabuts for religious
purposes. The Senusiya order has recently established settlements in several of the
Twat oases. This region is, on the other hand, closed for the present to the French,
not only on political grounds, but also because they belong to the hated Christian
sect.
The Gurara and Timmiun Oasis.
Gurara, in Berber Tigurarin or Tijurarin, comprises the northern division of
Twat, consequently the district which in commercial matters depends most on the
neighbouring colony of Algeria. In a geographical sense, it forms even a direct
southern extension of that region, for the waters of its oases are derived by under-
groimd channels from the Geryville uplands. The various rivers flowing in the
direction of the desert, such as the Wed-en-Namus, the Wed-el-Gharbi, the Wed
Seggwer, the Wed Zergun, and all the intermediate affluents, disappear beneath the
sands of the Erg: desert : but the streams continue to flow in subterranean beds,
again coming to the surface south of that region of shifting dimes. The gazelle-
hunters and Shaanba marauders, studying the direction taken by these river valleys,
AFRICA I. /t h
458
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
have discovered at intervals certain feij, or cavities, corresponding with the uuder-
o-round passage of the waters.
The overflow of moisture oozes up in an extensive sebkha, or saline depression,
which takes the form of a crescent in a southern gulf of the sea of sands. At times
travellers find some difficulty in traversing this saline plain, owing to the soft or
boo-o-y nature of the ground. Round about the sebkha, which stretches north and
south for a distance of some GO miles, are disposed the oases and erected the fortified
ksurs, to the number of about eighty. They appear to have been formerly even
still more numerous, for here and there are met the vestiges of ruined villages in
Fig. 200.— GuEARA ANT) Wed Satjea.
SpAle 1 : 2.000.000.
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30 Miles.
the midst of now-abandoned plantations, which still yield a few dates without
artificial irrigation.
The inhabitants of Gurara, a name by which is more specially understood the
district lying north and east of the sebkha, belong for the most part to the Zenata
branch of the Berber race. The Meharsa tribe, however, which occupies the
northern oasis of Tin-er-Kuk, is of Arab descent, and families of the TJlad Sidi
Sheikh confederacy frequently pitch their tents in tliis oasis round about the palm
groves of the town of Tabclkma.
In the Sherwin oasis, which lies west of the sebkha, t'lie population, noted for
its valour, is also to a large extent Arab. The whole group of oases encircling the
THE GUEAEA AND TIMIMUN OASIS. 459
depression contains altogether several million palm-trees, over eight hundred
thousand being comprised in the seven ksurs of Dckhd, or Bddun, which belong
to the Zwa tribe. South of the sebkha the road runs almost uninterruptedly
beneath the shade of the overhanging foliage for a distance of 9 or 10 miles.
The gardens of Gurara are not watered by waters flowing on the surface, but by
fogarats (feggaguir), that is to say, galleries tapped at intervals by wells analogous
to those of Persia and Afghanistan. To the numerous sebkhas scattered over the
plain round the margin of the principal depression, are probably mainlv due the
much dreaded fevers which prevail in the oases during the summer montlJs.
These marsh fevers, unknown in the rest of the Twat country, are by the natives
called ikhrud, or " exterminating malady."
The chief oasis skirting the east side of the great sebkha is that of Timimun.
Here stands, surrounded by crenellated walls, the most populous town in Gurara,
and even in the whole region. It is usually regarded as the capital of Twat, and
the resident sheikh is one of the most powerful persons in the country. A neigh-
bouring convent belonging to the Tijaniya order also enjoys considerable influence
over the surrounding populations. Timimun is one of the three great marts of
Twat, and is more frequented than any other by caravans from Algeria. !Never-
theless this town does not appear destined to lie on the route of the future Trans-
saharian railway. The sandy waste which stretches to the north of the Gurara
oases obliges travellers to make a detour, either to the east through El-Golea, or to
the west through Beni- Abbas, Karzas and the valley of the Wed Saura.
Beni-Ahbas, an important centre of the caravan trade, is the first oasis of the
"Wed Saura below Igli and the confluence of the upper tributaries. The village,
which has a permanent population of six hundred souls, is almost buried amid the.,
surrounding dimes. Nowhere else in the whole Mussulman world can a more
striking example be found of the power of the religious confraternities. Five
different orders are here represented, all claiming and receiving contributions from
the faithful.
One of these orders has its mother-house at Karzas, some GO miles farther
down. Situated on the left bank of the "Wed Saura, in the narrow valley formed
by this watercourse between the two sandy wastes of Erg to the east and the
Iguidi dunes to the west, Karzas constitutes, like Beni- Abbas, an indispensable
station for travellers and caravans descending from the higher valleys of the upper
basin in Marocco and Algeria, or returning northwards from the lower Twat oases.
Thus lying on the great highway of the desert, Karzas would be exposed to
attacks from every quarter, had it not been created a sort of neutral town by the
unanimous consent of the surrounding populations. Being incapable of defence it
is never attacked by anyone. Encircled by no walls, it welcomes as guests all
presenting themselves at the convent gates, few of whom, however, arrive empty-
handed.
The marabuts of Karzas not only enjoy the revenues derived from their planta-
tions, which develop a vast garden along the "Wed Saura, and which yield dates of
excellent quality, including one variety found nowhere else, but they also keep
460 NOETn-WEST AFRICA.
laro-c herds, which graze freely on the surrounding steppes and dunes, the animals
marked as the property of the order being respected by all. The confraternity
also derives large profits from trade, its members being the chief agents in main-
taining the commercial relations between Algeria and Twat. Nearly all the
Karzas marabuts marry before the age of fifteen. The direction of the community
is not a hereditary office, as in all other monastic establishments. The dignity is
not transmitted from father to son, but passes by right to the doyeUy or oldest
member of the establishment.
Ulad-Raffa, Tsabit, and Tamentit.
Amongst the centres of population which follow in succession beyond Karzas
in the Saura basin, one of the most important is Ulad-Raffa, which is quite as
populous as the m^rabut town. It is inhabited by a branch of the Ghenenma, or
Ghenanema tribe, the Rlnema of Rohlfs, a Mussulman community noted for its
indifferent observance of the presciibed rites. The Rhamadan fast is kept by them
not in their owti persons, but by proxy, the custom being to hire substitutes
willing to mortify the flesh on their behalf for a consideration. Most of them are
wretchedly poor, largely supporting themselves by plunder, for nearly all the
cultivated tracts in this valley are in the hands of a few opulent owners. The
absorption of the land in great domains is the curse of these oases, as of so many
more cjivilised regions.
The area of arable land might here be greatly enlarged, for although little water
is visible in the channel of the Saura, the central parts are at least always moist,
«and the underground reservoirs might easily be tapped by sinking wells a few feet
deep along its bed. Even below Ulad-Raffa, the sandstone hills hemming in the
stream, and whose base forms a sort of barrage, drive the water to the surface. In
this defile, says Fum-el-KhiAk, are situated some gueltas, or permanent meres,
always flooded with a fluid, which although somewhat brackish is nevertheless
drinkable.
South of the gorge some fogarats, fed by the subterranean waters, have been
successfully simk in several places, and vast marshy tracts occupy the depressions
between the sandhills lying to the west of the "Wed Saura. One of these sebkhas
is commanded by the fortress of El- JJ(jicarta, peopled by branches of the Beraber
and Zcnata tribes. Farther west, about midway between AVed Saura and Tafilelt,
another sebkha is skirted by an oasis containing five or six thousand palms, dotted
with the hamlets of TahelhcH.
South of the great Gurara sebkha, the oases are grouped more closely together
between the western escarpments of the plateau and course of the Wed Saura,
which here takes the name of Messaud. Here the Augwerut (Wagwerut,
Ugwerut) oasis, inhabited by the Kcnafra and the Ulad Abd-el-Mulat tribes,
stretches for about 18 miles along the foot of a range of heights pierced with
undergrouud galleries and wells. The chief town comprises two distinct quarters,
Share f and the zawya of Sidi Aomar.
TILLULIN— TIDIKELT— INSALAH. 461
The Tsabit oasis, although less extensive, enjoys greater commercial and
strategic importance, thanks to its situation on the great caravan route. Brinken, its
capital, is still one of the most populous towns in Twat, although in the year 1848,
during a civil war between the oases it lost half of its inhabitants and palm groves.
Towards the south follow in succession the oases of Sba, Buda, and Timmi. At
the time of Rohlfs' visit, the group of twenty hamlets constituting Timmi was
the, most flourishing in the whole of Twat. Adrar, its capital, which possesses a
permanent market, enjoys this advantage in common with Timimun in the Gurara
district, and the town of Tamentiiy which lies 6 miles farther south, at the farther
side of a saline depression where no water is ever collected.
Tamentit, the largest town in Twat, forms an independent republic, administered
by a jemaa, or assembly of notables, and a sheikh. The population is not only
Mussulman, but mainly composed of a Taibiya confraternity, which sends its
offerings regularly to the Sherif of Wezzan in Marocco. 'Nevertheless, the
inhabitants of Tamentit are of Jewish descent, like those of several other dis-
tricts in Twat, Forcibly converted into fierce Mohammedan fanatics, and almost
assimilated to the Negro type by the intermixture of races, they have at least
preserved their Hebrew origin, the characteristic qualities of tact in the administra-
tion of affairs, and much skill in the exercise of all the industries. Their jewellers,
armourers, locksmiths, boot and shoe makers, and tailors, have opened workshops
in the bazaar, and the quaKty of their ware yields in no respect to that of their
brethren in the large towns of Algeria and Marocco.
TiLLL'LIN — TiDIKELT InSALAH.
In the courtyard of the citadel at Tamentit the natives show with pride a
" stone fallen from heaven," a black polished block, which is probably a meteorite.
According to the local tradition, it was formerly a mass of solid silver, but was
afterwards changed to iron, doubtless in consequence of the depravity of mankind.
South of Tamentit, where the oases take the name of Twat in a more special sense,
the plantations are grouped under the general denominations of Blad Sali and Blad
Reggan. They are continued southwards along the course of the "Wed Messaud as
far as Tillulin and Taurirt, at the confluence of another wed descending from the
eastern plateaux. This district is one of the most densely inhabited in the whole
region of palm groves. But farther on all cultivation gives place to the desert, in
the midst of which the river disappears, either absorbed in a saline depression, as
Rohlfs was assured by the natives of Twat, or else in a gorge through which it
effects a junction with the Teghazert, another stream flowing from the southern
slopes of the Ahaggar highlands.
According to MM. Pouyanne and Sabatier, who have collected reports from a
large number of the inhabitants, this watercourse, interrupted only by a range of
sandhills which may be traversed in less than two hours, would appear to belong to
the fluvial basin of the Niger, its confluence with that river being through a
succession of marshy depressions alternately dry and flooded. But in this direc-
462
NORTH-WEST AFEICA.
tion there are no more human habitations, nothing being met except at long
intervals the camping- grounds of the Tuareg nomads. Such are Inzizc, Timissau
and some other places, where a little water can be had.
The groups of oases, however, begin again east of the Twat district properly so
called, beyond an intervening stony tract about 7 miles broad. Here are grouped
the settlements of Tidikclt, Aula/, Tiff, and AJccb/i, the last-named noted throughout
tlie whole of the Sahara as a market for black slaves, and as a general rendezvous for
tmvellcrs and caravans proceeding southwards to the Sudan. In the neighbour-
hood are some alum, mines, worked by the natives.
In this district the most important palm groves are those of InsaJah (the Ain-
Salah, or " Fountain of Peace " of the Arabs), which lie in the northern part of
the Tidikclt oasis. Here several villages follow from north to south along the
Fig. 201. — Twat and TroiKELT.
Scale 1 : 3,000,000.
27
\S.,. KasrOu'.
W.Saut/JX--.
WcrarShin
. . qW. Tim ml
jl ^.Tamentit
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v:
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E. . e.f G
reenivicr
Villages \i
60 Miles.
margin of a scbkha at the foot of a range of sandhills, which skirts the east side of
the saline. An underground channel tapped by wells, in which is collected the
water oozing through the sands, yields a sufficient supply for the plantations. The
area of cultivated land has even recently been greatly extended at the expense of
the sebkha and of some improductive thickets of shrubs.
In Twat, as in the rest of the Sahara, the land belongs to whoever sinks a well,
keeps it in repair, and " quickens " the soil. But works of this sort can be under-
taken only by the whole tribe acting in concert, or by the more powerful chiefs, who
can employ forced or voluntary labour. In the Insalah oasis the system of great
domains generally prevails. The sheikh and other mdmbers of his family own
severally many thousands of palms, and surround themselves with hundreds of
retainers, who cat their bread and champion their cause. In Twat, however, there
I
AIE, AND COUNTRY OF THE AWELLIMIDEX BEEBEES. 463
are also some small holdings, which are highly cultivated, and as thriftily adminis-
tered as the arable lands in the Yang-tse-Kiang valley.
In the northern part of the Insalah oasis is situated the village of Meliana or
Miliaiia, to which M. Soleillet penetrated in the year 1873. But the chief centre
of population, Ksar-el-Arab, or Ksor-el-Arb, lies farther south. Here resides the
sheikh^ a very potent personage, thanks to his great wealth, to the heroic traditions
ci the Bujuda family, of which he is the representative, to the patronage he is able to
exercise over the neighbouring Tuareg tribes, and to the protection he affords to
passing caravans.
Air, and Country of the Awelltmiden Berbers.
In the centre of the region stretching from the Tibesti highlands westwards to
the great bend of the Niger, rise the uplands of ^\ir (in Arabic Ahir*), surrounded
on all sides by sandy wastes and rocky plateaux, and forming a distinct orographic
system, with its main axis disposed in the direction from north to south. This
rugged region, the Asben or Absen of the Negroes and undoubtedly the Agesimba
of Ptolemy, has • hitherto been visited only by one European expedition, that
conducted by Richardson, Barth, and Overweg in the year 1850. These explorers,
advancing southwards from Rhat, had crossed the central crest of the Sahara by
the jagged Azjar plateau and the gorge of Egueri. Then leaving the region of
sandstone formations, they entered that of the granites, taking a south-westerly
and southern direction in order to reach the wells of Asiu, one of the m9st impor-
tant watering-places in the desert. Here converge all the main routes from
Ghadames, Tibesti, Twat, and Agades. On the level plain are sunk four wells,
yielding an abundant supply of water, but ferruginous and of a disagreeable flavour.
Two of these wells belong to the Azjar Tuaregs, while the two others are regarded
as the property of the natives of Air. According to an intertribal convention,
which, however, is no longer observed, the respective owners of the waters are
bound to refrain from all acts of hostility beyond the limits of their own territories.
It was south of the line of demarcation, consequently in the Air domain, that
Barth and his fellow-travellers, although under the protection of Mohammedan
escorts, were attacked and plundered by the Azjars, in violation of the terms of
this agreement.
The Air highlands cover a considerable extent of groimd. From the Tidik
Valley, opening to the north-west of the northern group of hills, like a moat encir-
cling a citadel, as far as the Baghsen mountains, southern limit of the whole
region, the distance in a straight Hne is about 120 miles. From east to west the
breadth varies from 40 to 60 miles, while the superficial area of the whole system
may be estimated at 6,000 square miles. Granite appears to be the prevailing
formation, although Barth and his companions also noticed some sandstones, and
in these highlands, as well as in those of Tibesti, some basalt rocks also occur.
Rising in the midst of the Saharian plains, which here lie at a mean elevation
of from 1,600 to 2,000 feet above sea-level, the heights of Air exceed, in some of
* Ahir, incorrectly but designedly for the reason given by Barth, i. p. 336. — Ed.
«
464 NORTH-'VV'EST AFRICA.
their crests, an absolute altitude of 5,000 feet. The loftiest peak, towering in
pyramidal form towards the north-western extremity of the system, is Mount
Tengik or Timge, to which Barth assigns an estimated height of from 5,000 to
G,000 feet. Towards the centre is Mount Eghellat, with an altitude of perhaps
4,400 feet ; and the two terminal groups of Doghem and Baghsen attain at least
the same elevation, "\^Tiile traversing a deep gorge along the foot of the basaltic
Doghem rocks, Barth at first supposed that this mountain was even the culminatinjj
point of the whole orographic system.
In the interior and roimd the contour of the Air highlands there nowhere
occur any upland valleys comparable to those of the European Alpine regions.
They are for the most part savage gorges and ravines developing a sort of shebka,
or " thread," like the beds of the torrents in the Mzab coimtry. But these
ravines, which are flushed by foaming waters after the heavy rainfalls of September
and October, do not fc^rm river basins lower down. They either disappear, absoi'bed
in the vast sandy wastes or in the surrounding hamadas, or else end abruptly in
some rocky cirque, where the rain water, collected in temporary lakes, gradually
evaporates.
Taken collectively, the Air uplands present the general aspect of mountain
masses which the running waters have not yet cut into a regular range, with its
lateral ridges, offshoots, and transverse valleys. Hence, as in Fezzan, the depres-
sions are the only spaces available for cultivation, the intermediate cliffs presenting
nothing bjut arid escarpments.
Flora, Fauna, and Inhabitants of Air.
•
In their vegetation the Air highlands are not an exclusively Saharian region,
some of the plants here flourishing already attesting the proximity of Sudan. The
more fertile hollows are clothed with veritable forests, in which varieties of the
mimosa family form the prevailing feature. Thickets of the dum-palm are also
common, while the grazing-grounds are sufficiently extensive to enable the
inhabitants to occupy themselves with the breeding not only of camels but also of
zebus, which are used both as mounts and as beasts of burden. On all the grassy
heights goats browse in multitudes ; but there are no sheep, and horses are
extremely rare.
Most of the villages have their cluster of date-trees and their fields of millet
{pcnnisetum ti/phoideiun) ; but the tracts brought under cultivation are far lers
extensive than might be the case. While in Sudan the ground is carefully tillc^l
with the hoe and weeded, the few natives of Air wlio occupy themselves with
agriculture 8till make use of the plough. The great majority of the " Asbenava,"
as they are called, devote themselves to stock-breeding and to trade, relying to a
great extent on the inhabitants of Sudan for the necessary supply of cereals.
The lion, which seems to have disappeared from the eastern highlands of the
Sahara, is still frequently met in Absen, and occasionally even in packs. It
belongs apparently to a different species from that of Senegal, being destitute cf
PLOEA, FAUNA, AND INHABITANTS OF AIE.
46l
mane, like the variety still surviving in Western India. The leopard, although
less common, is more feared by the natives. Hyajnas are very rare, while the
jackal prowls in numerous packs round all the camping-grounds. The wild boar
has its lair in the thickets, and monkeys boldly venture amid the clumps of trees
in close proximity to the human habitations.
Various species of antelopes, some indigenous in Northern Sahara, some
^originally from Sudan, roam over the surrounding plains, and penetrate into the
mountain gorges. The feathered tribe is represented only by a small number of
species, but each species by myriads of individuals. Of the species the most
common are the turtle-dove and guinea-fowl. Although relatively to the rest of
the Sahara, the Air uplands may be said to abound in animal life, they might be
almost described as a lifeless region compared with the southern zone of steppes
bordering on the Sudan, and separated from Asben by the bare and arid Abadarjen
plateau. These stejjpes, says Earth, are the true home of ,the giraffe, and of the
beautiful long-horned leucoryx antelope ; here the ostrich is met in large flocks,
and the ground is burrowed in long galleries by the earth-hog {oryderopus (Bthiopicus) ,
an animal which never leaves its hole in the daytime, and is consequently rarely
seen by the natives.
Like its flora and fauna, the native population of Air gives evidence of the
constant struggle and crossing of species between the Sahara and Sudan. In this
debatable land between the two regions, the Berber and Negro races have long
contended for the supremacy. The ancient Goberawa, who are traditionally
said to have been its former masters, would appear to have been black Berbers,
constituting one of the aristocratic families of the Negro Haussa nation. These
seem to have been followed by other conquerors of Berber origin, descending frjom
the northern highlands. Such were the Kel-Gheres, that is to say, " People of
Gheres," and the Itissan, who are classed by Ibn-Khaldun amongst the tribes of
the powerful Sanheja confederation. ^
But all these former invaders are now ranked amongst the vanquished. Driven
from the Air highlands during the first half of the present century, they withdrew
in the direction of the western and south-western plains, here occupying a territory
ceded to them by the Awellimiden confederacy. The Kel-Gheres and Itissan tribes
are distinguished amongst the Berber peoples especially for their strength, beauty,
and graceful carriage. The complexion is comparatively speaking fair, and they
pride themselves on the purity of their blood. They have also a great reputation
for courage, and although far less numerous than the present occupants of the
Asben uplands, they enjoy the advantage of being nearly all horsemen, whereas
their hereditary foes mostly employ camels in the battlefield. Warriors mounted
on horses have naturally much greater freedom of action, and can manoeuvre far
more rapidly than those using the clumsy " ship of the desert."
The present rulers of Air, or Asben, called Asbenava (Asbcnawa) by the
Sudanese peoples, give themselves the designation of Kel-Owi, that is, " Men of
Owi," from a place supposed to be the cradle of their race, but the site of which has
not yet been determined by the historian. They are undoubtedly of Berber origin,
466 NORTH- WEST AFRICA.
and their home lies somewhere to the north of Air. They even form part of the
famous Auraghcn nation, and might almost claim to be " Africans " in a pre-
eminent sense, if it be true, as many learned authorities suppose, that the name of
the continent has been taken from these Auraghen, or Aurighas.*
But, however this be, the Auraghen are not of pure Berber stock. According
to the local tradition, the Kel-Owi undertook at the time of the conquest, about the
year 1740, to spare the lives of the black natives ; an alliance was even contracted*
with ^em, the Berber chief engaging for himself and his posterity that the head
of the new djTiasty should always marry a black wife. Most of his followers did
the same, and at present the Kel-Owi, while remaining Awellimiden, or " veiled,"
like the other Tuaregs, have for the most part a very dark complexion. In their
features also, as well as in their moral qualities, they betray a marked resemblance
to the Haussa Negroes of Sudan. Like them they are of a bright cheerful dis-
position, kind and fricftdly to strangers. The race of slaves has mingled with that
of freemen, say the Tuaregs, who have preserved the purity of their blood, and who
give to the Kel-Owi the opprobrious name of Ikelan, or " Slaves."
The Auraghiye, or old Berber language, spoken by them, has also been
corruj^ted by a mixture of Haussa words and expressions, and most of the Kel-Owi
even speak both languages. Some amongst these Berbers have even forgotten
altogether their mother-tongue. Such are the people of Agades, in the region
south-west from Air, who are comprised within the zone of Songhai (Sonhrai)
speech, th£ Negro language current in Timbuktu.
On the other hand, the old matriarchal customs have been preserved amongst
the Kcl-0\\'i Berbers. In Asben the husband does not lead the bride to his home,
but* follows her to that of her parents. Property also and power are transmitted
not from father to son, but in the female line from the imclc to the sister's son.
Analogous customs are retained amongst some other Berber tribes, as well as amongst
the Negro populations of Sudan.
/
Topography of Air.
Sclufint and Tintaghoda, the two northern villages of Air, inhabited by
marabuts, are mere collections of hovels covered with the foliage of the dum-palm,
wliich has here its northern limit. Although the residence of a secondary
amanokal, Tintellust is little better in appearance. It lies at an altitude of 1,920
feet on a wed by which the Timge mountains are completely separated from the
soudicrn Boundai group. In the neighbourhood dwell the noblest families of the
Kel-Owi nation. The Tintellust valley is described by Barth as a broad sandy
channel, bare of herbage and only lined with bushes along its border. At the time
of his visit it was the residence of the powerful chief Annur, and a little farther
south stands the sandhill selected as the camping-ground of the English expedition.
Doubtless this sandliill will ever be memorable in the annals of the Asbenawa as
the " English Hill," or the " Hill of the Christians." f
• Carctto, " Oriffino ct Mi{?Tfttion dcs principalcs tribus dc I'Afriquc."
t Bu-th, " TravclH," i. p. 31.
TOPOGRAPHY OF AIR.
467
Tintellust is surpassed in population by two other places in Air : to the south-
east Tafidct, a group of three villages, one of which is the residence of a prince
enjoying a high reputation for sanctity ; and to the south-west Assodi, which is
said to have been formerly a very large town, containing about a thousand houses
and seven mosques. At present scarcely more than eighty of its houses are
inhabited.
Fig. 202.— AiE.
Scale 1 : 2,000,000. ,^
IS"!
17"
NarthErn Limit- f # J T
of the dump a /m v% ^^i
/if*Oo^he
#r
_AGADES
17°
L V of breenwich
_ 30 Miles.
South of this place the caravan route passes the imposing Mount Tehereta,
whose steep slopes terminate in a double cone. The route then skirts the west side
of the lofty Doghem escarpments, beyond Avhich it penetrates into the beautiful
Auderas valley, probably the most southern place in Central Africa where the
plough is used. Here Barth saw three slaves yoked to a plough and driven like
t
468 NORTH-^VEST AFRICA.
oxen by their master. To the north of the gorge leading from the valley, a gloomy
cirque of rocks is occupied by a famous msid, or place of prayer, a pre-eminently
holy spot, founded to commemorate the conversion of the pagan Haussa people to
the faith of Islam. The sacred enclosure consists of stones regularly disposed
round a space about 65 feet long, within which a shady acacia marks the place
where the imaum raises his hand in prayer. No good Mussulman coming from the
north ever neglects to offer his thanks to Allah when passing by this msid or
makara, which is known throughout the Sahara under the name of makam csh-
S/icikh ben Ahd cl Kerim, the " Shrine of Sheikh ben Abd the Gracious."
Formerly the capital of Asben was TinsJiaman, a city of learned men and
merchants, now mentioned only as a village in ruins. Its trade and population
have been shifted some 24 miles farther south, to the famous town of Agadcs, the
most populous in the whole of the Sahara. According to the local tradition, this
place had formerly as nviny inhabitants as Tunis, and Earth's careful measure-
ments have shown that the superficial area of the ancient city was large enough to
contain as many as fifty thousand souls.
The epoch of the great prosperity of Agades was about the beginning of the
sixteenth century, at which time it was the chief mart of the Saharian border zone,
trading directly with Timbuktu and all the principal towns of the Sudan.
Destroyed by the Tuaregs at the end of the last century, it has again risen from
its ruins, and at the time of Earth's visit contained from six hundred to seven
hundred inli^ibitcd houses. The total population is at present about seven
thousand, including the family chiefs and traders, and others visiting the place on
business. Foreign merchants are also settled at Agades, especially natives of
Twat, ihe most skilful dealers in the Sahara. They are engaged exclusively in
the retail trade, and as brokers in connection with the importation of cereals from
the Sudan. The diverse origin of its inhabitants and their varied commercial
relations with all the surrounding lands have made Agades a polyglot city, where
are currently spoken the Aurighiye (Berber), Haussa, and Songhai languages.
Arabic is scarcely understood, except by the lettered classes, who form here a
numerous corporation. Nearly three hundred children attend the mosques, where
their instruction is mainly confined to the recitation of verses from the Koran.
Agades Ues at an altitude of about 25,000 feet, on the edge of a sandstone and
granite plateau, whose waters, springing from great depths, yield a certain quantity
of salt. In several quarters the town presents the aspect of a heap of ruins,
mounds consisting exclusively of refuse and debris surrounding many of the
inhabited houses. The only remarkable monument in the place is the " Tower,"
pre-eminently so-called, about 95 feet high, and serving the double purpose of a
minaret and a watch-tower. The shaft bulges out towards the centre, like the
trunk of a deleb palm-tree, and gradually tapers towards the summit, where it is
not more than about 8 feet in width. Ijike most of the houses in Agades, it is
built entirely of clay, and in order to strengthen a building so lofty and of so soft
a material, its four walls are united by thirteen layers of boards of the dum-tree,
crossing the whole tower in its entire length and width, and projecting on each
ADGHAGH. 469
side from 3 to 4 foot, while at the same time affording the only means of getting
to the top.
Agades has but few industries, and these are mostly left to the women. They
do all the leather work and weave all the rugs, and the cheese made by them is
highly prized throughout the Sahara. The local trade is still very active, the
transport of salt especially forming an important branch of the business of the
place. By the Kel-Gheres and other Berber tribes of the district are organised
all the caravans, which have to proceed to Bilma for the supply and afterwards
convey it to the Sudan, where it is sold at the rate of from forty thousand'to sixty
thousand cowries per camel-load. The salt caravan never numbers less than three
thousand camels. At the time of Earth's visit the medium of exchange in the
Agades market was neither gold nor silver, nor shells nor bales of cloth, but only
the grains of millet {pennisetum) . But forty years have elapsed since the groat
explorer traversed this region, and forty years often see many changes in the
customs and institutions of a people.
Adghagh.
West of Air, and beyond the steppes inhabited by the Kel-Gheres and Itissan
Berbers, a region of uplands, never yet visited by a single European traveller,
occupies a superficial area of at least 80,000 square miles. Its very name of
Adghagh, or Adrar, makes it probable that this vast tract does not consist of a
series of level or uniform plateaux, but that it must be intersected by lofty
mountain ranges. These heights, forming a group of highlands comparable to
those of Ahaggar and Tibesti, rise to the north and north-east of the great bond
described by the course of the Niger west of the deep sandy valley, through which
percolate the waters of the "Wed Tafassasset, known by the name of the Ballul
Basso in its lower course, near its confluence -s^ith the Niger.
The southern slope of the Adghagh highlands is already comprised within the
zone of regidar rainfall. Here the moisture-bearing south winds, arrested by the
mountain ranges, precipitate a considerable quantity of water, often in the form of
hail, on the upland valleys. The Adghagh orographic system thus belongs in its
higher regions to the Sudan, in its lower slopes to the Sahara.
The whole district abounding in pasture lands and forest vegetation along the
river valleys, might become an " African Switzerland," adapted not only for camel-
breeding, but also for cattle-farming. Hundreds of thousands of an industrious
peasantry might also find employment in cultivating the alluvial tracts at the
mouth of all the mountain gorges.*
But at present the country is in the possession of the Tuaregs, whose various
tribes are comprised under the general designation of Awellimiden, and who,
according to the national tradition, came originally from the region of the Saharian
Sahel. Their ancestors appear to have roamed over the western plains, intor-
* Pouyanne, "Note sur rctablissement de la carte dc la region comprise cntre Ic Touat ct Tim-
bouctou."
470
NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
jiiinolcd with the Ulad-Dclim nation, with whom they had contracted numerous
alliances. After making themselves masters of the Adghagh highlands and of
the surrounding plains, they united with other Berber or with Nigritian tribes ;
then breaking away from their mountain fastnesses, and crossing the Niger, they
penetrated far into the Sudan, where they reduced more than one Xegro Idngdom.
But they have been partly subdued in their turn, at least in an ethnological and
linguistic sense. Many have been assimilated in physical appearance to the
Ilaussa Negroes, while their Berber speech has been largely affected by words and
expressions borrowed from the Nigritian languages of Sudan.
Travellers speak vaguely of communities not yet converted to the Mohammedan
faith, who are supposed to occupy the Adghagh uplands, interspersed amongst the
Awellimiden tribes. These aborigines take the name of Daggatun, and speak the
same Berber dialect as the Tuaregs ; but their complexion is lighter, and they
marrv exclusively amongst themselves. No Targui, however poor, would ever
consent to give his daughter in marriage to the wealthiest heir of the Daggatuns.
These pagans have no rights except through the mediation of some Targui
patron, who in return for their tribute consents to become their " shield." But
when the tribe sets out on a marauding or warlike expedition, the Daggatuns
become the shield, being always placed in front. According to the Jewish
traveller, Mardochai, these retainers of the Awellimiden are Jews, if not in religion
at least by descent, and like their kindred elsewhere, occupy themselves chiefly
with the retail traffic.
Being animated by little zeal for the faith, and remiss in the observance of the
prescribed praj'crs and fasts, the Awellimiden have neither schools nor mosques.
Their religious centre is in the Sudan, their marabuts being the Bakkai of
Timbuktu, to whom they remit their offerings, and from whom they receive the
interpretation of the Koran and all now institutions. Thus the ancient matri-
archal custom, according to which i^he inheritance passes to the sister's sons, has
now been abolished among the marabuts of the Awellimiden, surviving only in
the civil population. In other respects the usages of the southern Tuaregs differ
little from those of their northern kindred. Like them they dwell in leather tents
or under matting, and the nation is divided into a noble class, and the imrhad, or
caste of enslaved workers. Manual labour is held in contempt, and their chief
occupation is incessant warfare with their neighbours, whether these be of kindred
stock, like the Kel-Gheres and Itissau tribes, or of alien race, liV.e the riverain
populations of the Niger Valley.
CHAPTER XII.
WESTERN SAHARA.
EST of the transverse depression whicli extends from the southern,
limits of the province of Oran southwards to ♦the Niger, and which
throughout its entire length is probably occupied by the dricd-
up bed of the Messaura, the Sahara nowhere presents any promi-
nent mountain ranges constituting a distinct physical region.
Throughout its whole extent this vast tract, comprising a superficial area of over
800,000 square miles, presents nothing but an everlasting succession of dunes,
depressions, slightly elevated hamadas, rocky ridges or low ranges scarcely any-
where exceeding 1,600 feet above sea-level. To the whole of this western section of
the Sahara, which nevertheless has a breadth of over 600 miles, the inhabitants of
the Wed Saura basin apply the general designation of Sahel, or " coastland," as if
it were a mere inland extension of the Atlantic seaboard.
The northern division of this Saharian region is mainly occupied with^low
plateaux or level tracts and dunes, the hills forming unimportant groups, lost, as it
were, like islets in the midst of a boundless sea of sands. South of the Wed Draa
the caravan routes runninG; in the direction of Timbuktu at first traverse nothinij
but hamadas with a mean elevation of from 1,250 to 1,300 feet, and separated from
each other by river gorges, all inclined towards the west. The surface of the
plateaux consists almost everywhere of paleozoic formations underlying more recent
rocks, which by erosion have been cut up into the appearance of towers, crenellated
walls, and other fantastic forms. Some of the serirs are paved, as it were, with a
mosaic floor consisting of myriads of little quartz, agate, opal, and chalcedony
pebbles.
The Iguidi Duxes — Juf — Adrar.
South of these plateaux stretches, like a marine inlet, the great erg of Iguidi,
which is disposed in the direction of the Atlas range, that is, from south-west to
north-east, and which begins in sight of Twat, on the left side of the Wed Saura
basin. At the point where the traveller, Lenz, crossed the chain of dunes east of
the famous Bel- Abbas well, the general movement of the sands lies in the direction
from north-west to south-east. Such, at least, appears to be the trend, judging
472
NOETH-WEST AFRICA.
from the normal disposition of the dunes, whoso long incline slopes towards the
marine wind, while the more abrupt declivity is turned in the direction of the
continent. The prevailing atmospheric current in this region is a sea-breeze
derived from tlie deviation of the regular trade- winds. The mean height of the
Icj-uidi dunes ranges from 300 to 350 feet, although numerous crests rise to a
Tig. 203. — EouTES OF the Chief Exploeees in the Western Sahara.
Scale 1 : 2'2,000.000.
Depths.
0 to 3,'200
Feet.
3,200 to 6,400
Feet.
6,400 Feet mid
upwards.
360 Miles.
still greater elevation. Throughout the sands are disseminated Httle black
particles, or rather crystals, derived from the disintegrated rocks.
South of the chain of sandhills follow the El-Eglab mountains, consisting of
granite and porpliyry masses, which rise to heights of from 1,000 to 1,300 feet
above tlie plains — heights which appear prodigious in contrast with the dead
uniformity of the surrounding waste. Farther east stretches to an unknown
distance the dangerous Tanezruft region, so much dreaded by the caravans owing
to the general absence of water. iJut towards the south winds the bed of a torrent,
wliicli bears the name of the Wed Sus, like the river on the Marocco frontier, and
which occasionally presents to the traveller's gaze a slender liquid streak.
WESTERN SAHARA and WEST SUDAN
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THE IGUIDI DUNES— JUF—ADEAE. 478
South of this Saharian Wed Sus, other dreary wastes have still to be traversed,
forming a vast sea of sands, which is prolonged for hundreds of miles, in the
direction of the west. This region is indicated on the maps by the name of Juf , or
" Depression," although Lenz heard no mention of this term, except as applied 'to
a ravine or small watercourse known as the "VVed-el-Juf . Possibly the Juf may bo
less elevated towards the west, but there is no reason to suppose that it falls any-
vihere below the level of the Atlantic. Hence the project put forward by the
English speculator, Donald Mackenzie, of cutting a canal in order to create in this
region an "inland sea," with an estimated superficial area of 225,000,000 acres, or
nearly twice the size of France, is based on a flight of the imagination destitute of
the least geographical foundation.*
The region of the Juf is the least known section of the Western Sahara, and
like the Libyan desert in the extreme east, it still remains a blank space on our
maps. This vast wilderness, covering an extent of over 1^0,000 square miles,
has hitherto been traversed by no European explorer, nor crossed by any caravan
route.
West of the Juf and of the dreaded Maghter dunes, the monotony of the
desert is broken by a group of rocky heights, to which the general name of Adrar
(Aderer), or the " Mountain," has been applied, as to so many similar eminences
in the Berber country. But this " mountain " of the Western Sahara, which is
more specially known by the designation of Temar, cannot be compared with the
other Adrars of Mauritania and the central regions of the desert. It j^ in fact
little more than a mere stony tract connected towards its southern extremity with
the rugged plateaux of Tagant, and rising here and there to heights of from 250
to 300 feet above the surrounding sandy wastes. According to the statement made
to M. Masqueray by three young pilgrims from Adrar, it is " a long island hemmed
in between sandy plains, which present the appearance of a sea, and whose restless
surface rolls away like the ocean waves." f But these sandy spaces, above which
rises the " mountain," would seem to stand at a considerable altitude, at least if the
statement can be credited that at the declivity of the El-Aksabi plateau, to the
north of Adrar, the outer escarpments present elevations of from 1,350 to 1,C50 feet.
During the descent down these abrupt inclines, the camels often stumble, and
rolling over, get killed at the foot of the cliff.
Several other eminences, either isolated or developing continuous ranges, are
scattered to the north and west of the Adrar heights. The most remarkable of
these eminences, which are composed mainly of stratified sandstones, are the rocks
of El-Guenater, that is to say, the "Bridges" or "Archways," situated about
midway between Adrar and the Wed Draa Valley. They consist of basalt clilfs,
between which huge blocks remain suspended, like the keystones of immense
vaulted roofs or arches.
West of Adrar the highest group is the so-called Adrar Scttuf, or " Shell Moun-
tain," round which is developed the most advanced section of the Saharian coast-
* Donald Mackenzie, " The Flooding of the Sahara."
t " Bulletin of the Paris Commercial Geographical Society," March and April, 1880.
AFRICA 1. , i i
«
474 NOETH-WEST ATEICA.
line between Cape Berbas and Capo Blanc, The coast itself is here formed of
sUgbtlv elevated cliif s, also containing many fossil shells belonging for the most part
to species which still survive in the surrounding waters.
North of Adrar Settuf stretch the vast plains of Tiris, forming a kind of granite
floor pierced here and there by sharp rocks, " which serve as observatories for men
and moufflons." The sand which is formed by the decomposition of the granite
supports an aromatic vegetation affording excellent pasturage for camels. ,
• Rivers of the "Western Sahara.
The neighbourhood of the sea and of the zone of regular tropical rains secures
for the "Western Sahara a sufiicient quantity of water to prevent this region from
beiuo entirely destitute, if not of a fully developed hydrographic system, at least
of some intermittent streams and watercourses. South of the Wed Draa, which
receives a considerable number of lateral afiluents, another torrent drains in the
direction of the Atlantic, terminating in a large mouth between the cliffs, which
has been named the Boca Grande by the fishermen from the Canary Islands
frequenting this coast. This is the "Wed Shibica of the Arabs, and here probably
stood the ancient Spanish settlemejit of Santa-Cruz de Mar-Pequena. At this
point Mackenzie proposed to begin cutting the canal which was to convey the
Atlantic Ocean across the intermediate waterparting into the imaginary depression
of the Juf, and thus flood the Sahara. About 180 or 200 miles from the sea there
certainly exists a watershed rimning parallel with the coast, whence the rain
waters flow in one direction through independent channels seawards, in the other
descend towards the south-east. In this direction they disappear beneath the
Iguidi dunes, beyond which they again come to the surface in the form of springs
and little f/uclfas, that is to say, small meres and saline basins.
South of the Boca Grande, the only river vallej'- of any great extent is the
Sakiet-el-Homra, or " Red "Watercourse," which has sometimes been designated
as the ofiicial limit of Marocco, although really lying some 300 miles beyond the
true frontier of the empire.
The Adrar heights themselves also possess an independent hydrographic system,
although certainly of very limited extent. The chain of hills skirting the east side
of this group of eminences sends down supplies suflicieut to feed two rivers, both
of which flow in the direction from north-east to south-west, that is, parallel with
the main axis of Adrar. The northern stream comes to an end in a depression
whore its waters spread out and evaporate ; yet it seems to be continued by the
southern stream, both having their origin in the same valley. This watercourse,
on whose banks are concentrated nearly all the inhabitants of Adrar, escapes
from the region of highlands, ultimately losing itself in a marsh lying farther
south in the desert.
The Atlantic Seaboard.
The coast, which is broken at intervals to admit a passage for the inland
streams between its cliffs and dunes, is one of the most dangerous iu the whole of
THE ATLANTIC SEABOAED.
475
Africa. Its forbidding aspect naturally inspired terror in the Portuguese mariners
of the fifteenth centurj', when compelled by their instructions to follow a treacherous
seaboard, which had already been sighted before them by the Plia;nicians and
French navigators from Dieppe. Cape Nun, or " Non," was so named, said these
seafarers, playing on the word, because the sea echoed " Non " (No !) to any vessel.
Fig. 204.— Rio de Oeo.
Scale 1 : 400,000.
Depths.
0 to 16
Feet.
16 to 32
Feet.
32 to 64
Feet.
64 Feet
autl upwards.
6 Allies.
attempting to round the point. According to another legend, those white mariners
who sailed beyond it into the southern waters had all returned black.
From this dreaded headland to Cape Juby, from Cape Juby to Parchel or
Bojador, and thence to Cape Blanco, the aspect of the coast changes little for a
total distance of about 720 miles. The projecting promontories are indi.stinctly
marked on the horizoii, while the inland heights present everywhere the same
monotonous appearance of imiform tablelands or sandy hills. The grey dunes and
low brown beach, almost undistinguishable from the muddy surf, scarcely anywhere
e o
476 NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
present a patch of verdure to relieve the gaze, or suggest the presence of man.
The sea breaks several miles from the coast, and when the west wind blows, the
first white crests of foam are formed in 50 feet of water.
From October to April sailors carefully avoid these surf-beaten shores, where
not a single lighthouse has yet been erected, where the land is almost perpetually
Avrappcd in dense fog, and where a few hours suffice for the gale to lash the waters
into billows of monstrous size. For sailing vessels the most dangerous part of tb 3
Sahs^rian coast is the section lying between Boca Grande and Cape Juby. The
ocean stream skirting the continent from north to south, usually at some distance
from the mainland, and which is most felt some 6 miles seawards, also sets directly
in shore. Hence vessels here often drift helplessly towards the inhospitable beach,
which has been the scene of many shipwrecks. The current, which has a normal
velocity of little over half a mile, acquires more than double that rate of speed
near Cape Juby, probably owing to the neighbourhood of the Canary Islands
confining it to a narrower compass.
On the exposed Saharian seaboard, little shelter is afPorded to shipping, although
about midway between Cape Bojador and Cape Blanco a long inlet runs parallel
with the sea, here penetrating through a break in the line of cliffs. This is the
Rio de Oi-o, or " River of Gold," so named because in the year 1442 the Portu-
guese obtained here a little gold-dust by barter. They thought they had discovered
the golden " Pactolus," which was reported to form a branch of the Nile in the
interior cf the continent. The approach is difficult, and sailors penetrating into
the river in foul weather run the risk of perishing of hunger, because the bar
prevents their return and the land yields nothing.
t
Flora, Fauna, and Inhabitants of the Western Sahara.
«
Receiving a share of the regular tropical rains, Western Sahara is not entirely
destitute of vegetation, and, like other regions of the desert, it contains some few
oases. Even in the midst of the dunes the little saline swamps are covered here
and there with tufts of herbage, which supply fodder for the herdsmen's camels.
In the southern parts of the Juf, extensive tracts clothed with alfa, are known by
the designation of El-Miraia, or "the Mirror," doubtless owing to the shifting play
of dull colours and silvery tints, as the sea of alfa grass waves in the breeze.
These alfa plains indicate the neighbourhood of the steppe region, which with its
forests of acacias and mimosas, follows farther south between the desert and the
Sudan.
Adrar, which already belongs to this intermediate zone, is overgrown with gum-
trees, in some places so numerous that " the gum would be given for nothing to
anyone wishing to come and fetch it."*
In these regions the zebra begins to make its appearance, and one of the com-
monest animals is the ostrich, which suffers so much from the heat tliat it is easily
run down by the hunter mounted on an ordinary horse. On the scacoast the
E. Masqucray, loc. cit.
> *
» «
1
TOPOGKAPHY. 477
fishermen of tlie Ulad Bu-Sba tribe lie in wait for these birds when they come to
refresh themselves by beating the water with their wings. Then stealing behind
the dunes, they suddenly spring up raising loud cries, which so terrifies the
ostriches that they rush deeper into the sea, and so are captured one by one.
Like Marocco and the other Barbary States, the Western Sahara is divided
between the autochthonous Berbers and the intruding Arabs. The Ait-Attas
Pui-Mcnias, Berabers, Dui-Bellals, and other tribes encamp on the steppes, chang-
ing their quarters according to the state of the grazing-grounds, and at times
undertaking long journeys, either for the purposes of trade, or on missions of
vengeance or plunder. The Arab horsemen of the Sahel are said by Duveyrier to
push their marauding expeditions as far as the route between Insalah and Timbuktu
in order to pillage passing caravans. These raids are accompanied by camels laden
with water and suet. They are fed on the suet as long as it holds out, and then
killed to supply food for man and beast. Some of these expeditions last for several
months at a time.
The caravans equipped in the regions south of Marocco are organised either in
Tafilelt, or in the oases skirting the great bend of the "Wed Draa, or else in the
petty Berber states on the coast. One of their rendezvous is the Tekna oasis,
situated in the basin of the " Eed Watercourse." But a more favourite station is
the little town of Tenduf, founded during the present century exclusively for trading
purposes. It forms a group of over a hundred houses of beaten earth, encircled by
a few palms, and situated on a wed flowing towards the Draa basin. The, town is
inhabited by the Tajakant Berbers, who yield obedience to an Arab chief of the
Maribda tribe. This market does a considerable trade not only with Marocco and
Sudan, but also with Twat and Arabia. Once a year, about December or Januar}-,
the Tajakants assemble here to form the Kafila-el-Kebir, or " Great Caravan " of
Timbuktu, which comprises several hundred persons and thousands of camels.
During his visit to this place, Lenz was informed tnat the total value of the yearly
caravan trade averaged about £30,000. The return journey usually takes place in
May or June.
Owing to the devotion of its inhabitants to trade, Tenduf enjoys absolute
religious tolerance. The Tajakant people are also far more enlightened and better
educated than most of the other Saharian tribes. They supply teachers to all the
surrounding communities. The various tribes of this district are regarded as
belonging to a specially noble lineage ; hence even in Algeria many of the Berber
clans claim with pride to have come originally from the Sakiet-el-Hamra country.
Topography.
On the route from Tenduf to Timbuktu, which runs due south-west along the
line of hamadas and sands, the only centres of population that can be called to^^^ls
are Taudeni and Aratvnn. The former, lying near the Wed Teli, in a low-lying
part of the Juf depression, is an important station for caravans, which here find
water in abundance. But the chief resource of the place are its deposits of
J o
c
-178 NOETU-WEST i^J'EICA.
mineral salt, which supply a large part of Western Sudan. The miners hew out
blocks over three feet long weighing about seventy pounds, and of these four make a
camel-load. In the vicinity arc seen the remains of some former cultivated lands,
and even abandoned villages. But the present inhabitants of Taudeni, a half-caste
Arab and Negro people, occupy themselves exclusively with the salt-works. They
call themselves Drawa, implying that they came originally from the Wed Draa
district. But having ceased to keep up their relations with the mother-countrj ,
they depend now on the Berabish Arabs and on the merchants of Timbuktu. They
lead a miserable existence, drinking a brackish water, which they endeavour to
correct with curdled milk and other ingredients. Those engaged in the salt-
quarries live part of their time as troglodytes. When the heat becomes excessive,
they take refuge in the artificial caves excavated in the tufa hills skirting the
Wed Teli. Till recently they still used instrimients of serpentine in the salt-
works, and these stojie implements have become an article of export to Timbuktu,
the Sudanese women employing them for grinding the corn.
Arawan, lying near the southern margin of the desert, is the outpost of
Timbuktu. It forms a converging point for caravans, corresponding to Tenduf at
the other side of the Sahara. Although lying at a short distance to the north of the
grassy steppes and mimosa forests, and abounding in water, which flows in an under-
grovmd channel under the very houses, Arawan is one of the most wretched-looking
places in the whole of the Sahara. Nothing is anywhere to be seen except dunes,
unrelieved by a single tree, or a patch of verdure for the camels. The houses,
scattered about irregularly to the number of about a hundred, form quadrangular
masses with only a ground floor. The beaten-earth walls are pierced \yiib. a single
opening for a low door enframed in ornamental work, occupying the whole height
of the wall. Clay mouldings also embellish the edge of the terraced roof. The
house is built round an inner court, which however is seldom occupied, owing to
the sand filling the atmosphere, and the dense swarms of flies brought with every
fresh convoy. Being an exclusively commercial to'svn, troubKng itself little with
the religion of its visitors, Arawan is inhabited only by traders from Timbuktu,
their retainers, and the Ilaratin, or free Negroes, who attend to the caravans,
watering, loading, and harnessing the camels.
The Barabish tribe, who act as escorts, defending the convoys from their here-
ditary Tuareg enemies, 10%-}' a tax on all travellers passing through their territory.
Notwithstanding their name, which would appear to be of Berber origin, the
Berabish are, according to Lenz, of genuine Arab extraction. At the time of Lenz'a
visit, the tribal chief had in his possession most of the objects found on the body
of Laing, when that explorer was killed in the desert in the year 1826. According
to native report, his death was due to the failure of his medicines. Two patients
whom he had treated died one after the other; so it was feared that he was
distributing poison or had the evil eye. In the same region of the Sahara, ten
days' march to the north of Taudeni, is situated Sukayo, where the English
traveller was murdered by the llaribs ten years after the assassination of
Laiuir.
TOPOGEAPIIY.
479
A few other towns have been founded on the southern frontier of the desert.
About 60 miles east of Arawan, on the route of the now-abandoned Es-Suk, stand
the towns of Mahruk {Mehnilca) and Mamun, both near the Tanezruft desert, and both
inhabited by I^egroes, who also acknowledge the supremacy of the Berabish Arabs.
A more important place is Walata, which is said to be as large as Timbuktu, and
which was visited in 1860 by the Senegalese officer, AHum Sal. It Hes about 240
miles to the south-west of Arawan, north of the El-Hodh plateau, covering a space
of nearly half a square mile in an arid district bare of all vegetation. Hence, like
Arawan, it depends for its supplies on passing caravans, but has nevertheless
become a great centre of trade between the Senegal tribes and Tajakants of Tenduf.
Fig. 205. — Aeawan and Mabbuk.
Scale 1 : 3.500,000.
^■""
18°
"f ■C#*">^>'»'-*^/^ - ^- Bcu jebeha-
^ >^ n-H;iieK
£ J! Ji A ^ ^ *B;rMens;k
Erouk*
*El-Amou|diP nO^^
*••■ *'■■ - • .1.. ' "•• "• .1, .1...
-■■• , „*- 'V. '-, '■ ■"' . '• " ,•■■■"■ .,•■■ Bou-SaKbla
.-.."- ."■ .k. '••• > <i. "■" .. ....1 I,;
.■^- '^,;.. .^-•". ..."-... ..t ,.•-•. - ........ ,
19 =
18°
r .W«st ' East'l' rMendsn of.'Groeo.vi^n
60 Miles.
A special local industry is the manufacture of sacks and tobacco-boxes sold in every
market of the Sudan.
In the neighbourhood are seen numerous ruins, the habitations of a now-
vanished people. But towards the north-west, in the direction of Adrar, follow
several oases, amongst others that of Tishif, capital of the Kotmta tribe. The
town contains about six hundred stone houses. This borderland of the Sahara is
roamed over by several Arab tribes, such as the Ulad-Mahmud, Ulad-Embarck,
Ulad-en-Nacer ; but the settled population of the oases are Azers, a Negro people
of Mandingo stock originally from beyond the Senegal river.
In the sahel or coastlands there are no towns, but only a few mines and
camping-grounds. Tcrmasso)i, lying in the territory of the Eeguibat (Rgucibat)
tribe, south of the Wed Draa, is now little more than a group of stores where the
surrounding Arabs keep their supply of corn. Zemmnr and Grona, on the water-
parting between the Sakiet-el-Homra and Juf basins, although figuring as towns
> t
f
4(30 NORTH-AVEST Ai^RICA.
on our maps, arc mere encampments of tents set up in the glens where flourish a
few mimosas. The nomads of these districts belong to various races. The Ulad
Bu-Sba, or " Sons of the Lion," Arabs by extraction, are slave-dealers and much
dreaded marauders. The Shcrguins, of Berber stock, are distinguished from all
their neighbours by their round short features, small nose, prominent ears, high
forehead, and small stature.
The Tidrarins, also Berbers, keep generally near the seacoast, where they
traffic with the fishermen from the Canary Islands, exchanging milk for fish and
other *^roducc. The Tidrarins fish only with the line or net, and have no skin
boats, as had been stated by some travellers before Panet's expedition. They
belong to the powerful Ulad-Delim confederation, whose tribes are scattered over
the coastlands from the "Wed Draa estuary to the plains bordering on the Adrar
uplands.
, The Adrar Nomads.
These nomads, allied to the Trarza and Brakna tribes on the right bank of thn
Senegal, are like them a branch of the Zenagas, largely intermingled with the
Arabs, but much less so with Negroes. They also speak a Berber dialect, differ-
ing little from the Tamazight language. Their women are remarkably handsome,
and owing to the roving habits of the tribes, show less tendency to obesity, a
feature so highly esteemed amongst the other peoples of the Western Sahara. The
Ulad-Delim are always on the alert for attack or retreat, and when the order is
given to Strike their tents, half an hour suffices to collect the herds, pack all
movables, and start for the next camping- ground.
The Ulad-Delim, Ulad Bu-Sba, and Yahia Ben-Othman tribes are also met on
the margin of the great saline of Ijil (Ishil), although the produce of the sebkha
belongs not to them, but to the Kounta people, whose territory lies to the south-
east of Adrar. They require pajiment in camels for permission to extract the salt
and an export duty. No town has been founded on the shores of the sebkha,
although a considerable traffic is carried on in the camps about the salt-works,
especially after the rainy season, when the depression is flooded and all operations
arrested. The salt is cut in slabs, the same size as those of Taudeni, the total
annual quantity forwarded from Ijil to the Sudan being, according to Vincent,
twenty thousand camel-loads, or about four thousand tons. The chief market for
the produce is in the Tishit oasis amongst the owners of the saline. Here the
people of Sudan bring gangs of slaves, who are bartered for the salt, three slabs of
which represent the average price of a man.
Although rulers of Adrar, the Yahia Ben-Othmans do not reside in this
district, but keep moving about from place to place collecting the taxes imposed on
the subject tribes. The settled populations, comprising altogether about seven
thousand persons, besides the slaves, are of Berber extraction, far less mingled
with foreign elements than the neighbouring "Moors." The current speech is
also usually the Zenaga Berber dialect. They dwell for the most part on the
banks of the streams that take their rise in the interior of Adrar. El-Guedim, or
t «
THE MAEABUTS— ETJEOPEAN INFLUENCES. 481
El-Kedima, that is, the '* Old Town," although their most ancient settlement, is
nevertheless situated beyond the Adrar uplands on the verge of the eastern desert.
Near it is the toM'n of Wadan, formerly the largest and most flourishing in the
district. It was also the most learned, whence its name, which in Arabic means
the " Two Rivers," that is to say, according to the local interpretation, the "River
of Dates and the River of Science." During the first half of the sixteenth century
,the Portuguese had here a factory, which, however, they were compelled to
abandon, owing to its great distance from the Atlantic seaboard.
At the time of Vincent's journey the capital of the district was Shmgidti,
which stood in the midst of the dunes to the south-west of Wadan. Yet although
lost among the sands, it was said to have contained as many as eight hundred
houses, with a population of from three thousand to four thousand souls. Attar,
the present residence of the chief, and Vj'cf, are also populous villages.
Altogether the Adrar oases contain about sixty thousand date-trees, and besides
these plantations the natives also cultivate wheat, barley, and some other grains.
According to Panet, the dowry of the bride is in reahty merely the price set upon
her head, usually fixed at thirteen ells of cotton. Should she fail to please her
husband, she may be divorced by receiving back the piece of goods. But should
she on her part be dissatisfied with her husband, she may resume her liberty on
the condition of returning the dowry.
The Marabuts — European Influences. >
All the inhabitants of Adrar are marabuts, recognising the supremacy of a
spiritual chief who resides at El-Guadim, and who also enjoys a certain temporal
authority. Some of the natives belong to religious confraternities, whose head-
quarters are in Marocco, Algeria, and Tripolitana. In most Mussulman lands the
marabuts are revered by the warlike classes; but in this frontier region of the
Sahara they are held in little esteem. They certainly occupy a higher position
than the serfs and slaves, who are designated by the term lahmch, that is to say,
" flesh good to eat ; " but the respect paid to them is of a purely formal character,
except perhaps during the celebration of the religious rites. On these occasions
they take their stand on a mound or a rock set up in a space cleared of its scrub
and stones, to which is applied the title of mosque, like the sacred edifices erected
in towns. Here the prayers are recited in a loud voice by the marabuts, prostrat-
ing themselves in concert with all the congregation of tribal warriors. Being
mostly absorbed in mystic contemplation and generally of a meek disposition, the
marabuts of Adrar and neighbouring districts submit uncomplainingly to the
oppressive exactions imposed on them by the Moors of the military caste. At the
same time, they would probably accept with satisfaction a change of government,
by which they might acquire a greater share of influence than they seem at
present to enjoy. Hence it is through their co-operation that the French of the
Senegal settlements have several times endeavoured to re-establish the Portuguese
factories that have now been abandoned for nearly four hundred years.
482
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
Thanks also to their support, the Spaniards have become, since the end of the
year 1884, the nominal masters of the entire strip of coastlands which stretch for
a space of about 480 miles, between Capes Bojador and Blanco. Through their
influence Spain hopes perhaps to be able to penetrate into the interior, and thus
attract the caravan trade towards its new settlements on the Atlantic seaboard.
Four stations have already been founded on this coast, one at Villa Cisncros, in the
Ero-uibats peninsula, another farther east on the shore of the Rio de Oro inlet, and
one each on the Cinfra and Bel Oestc creeks. But hitherto all these Spanish
settlements have remained little more than obscure fishing villages, less important
even than were formerly similar establishments founded in the same districts by
the fishermen of the Canary Islands. At that time the waters were crowded with
fishing smacks in the neighbourhood of Cape Bojador, and especially about Angra
dos Ruyvos, or " Roach Bay."
APPENDIX.
STATISTICAL TABLES.
TEIPOLITANA.
Area, including the Kufra Oasia ....
Population (Statesman's Year Book, 1898)
Area of Barka, excluding the southern oases .
Approximate population, according to Camperio
AUJILA OASES.
Area.
Aujila 8 sq. miles (?)
Jalo ...... 80 „ (?)
Wadi ...... 80 ,, (?)
Leshkerreh 4 ,, (?)
485,000 sq. mileg
1,300,000
20,000 sq. miles
246,000
Population.
4,000
6,000
1,080
500
Date-palms.
40,000
100,000
40,000 (?)
20,000 (?)
KUFRA OASES.
Taiserbo
Sirhen
Buseima
Erbehna
Kebabo
Ai'oa according to Behm.
. 2,535 sq. miles
820 „
125
125
. 3,500 ,,
Total
7,105
Paxm Geoves op Teipolitana.
Meshiya of Tripoli, according to Barth
Plantations of Zawya
,, Zenznr ,, Eohlfs
,, Tajura
Oasis of Zella
,, Jofra
,, Misda and Gharia according to Barfch
Other plantations .....
1,000,000 palms.
130,000 ,,
100,000 „
200,000 „
100,000 „
15,000 „
1,000 „
100,000(?)„
Provinces.
Barka
Teipoli
Administeative Divisions op Teipolitana.
Districts. Chief Towns.
I Jebel-el-Akabah Denia
Jebel-el-Akhdar Benghazi
{ Aujila Oasis AujUa
Jalo Oasis Lebba
Leshkerreh Oasis
(TripoU TripoU
Zawya Zawya
I Khoms Lcbda
Jebcl ......•• Kasr-ol-Jebel
Ghadamcs ..,.<•• Ghadamea
i *
484
APPENDIX.
Adshnistrative Divisions of Tkipolitaxa — continued.
ProvinccB. Districts.
/ Bu-Njeim .....
Jofra .......
Zella
Fe;^zax
Chief Towns.
Bu-Njcim
. Sokna
. ZeUa
/ Wady Sliiati Brak
Fogha ........ Togha
Wady Lajal (Sebha) ..... Jedid
Hofra ........ Murzuk
RuAT Rhat
Export of cattle from Cyrenaica to Alexandria (1895), 17,000.
Trade of Bcughazi (1871), £467,000 ; 189G, £120,000.
Shipping of Benghazi (1893), 573 vessels ; tonnage 64,000.
Sponge fisheries of Benghazi (1895), £26,000.
Trade of Tripoli (1896) : imports £680,000 ; exports, £570,000 ; total, £1,250,000.
E.xport of alfa from Tripoli in 1870, 1,022 tons ; value £1,600
„ „ 1895, 31,000 ,, ,, £86,000
SmvPiNG OF Tripoli (1895.)
Steamers, 620; sailing vessels, 1,230; tonnage, 458,000.
fezza:n^.
Area, 120,000 square miles ; population, according to Rohlfs, 200,000.
Towns of Fezzan, with Appeoxuiate Populations.
Brak
"Wadi Shiati.
. 1,000
Semnu ....
Zighen ....
. 1,500
. 1,000
Ederi
800
Hofea.
Murzuk and outskirts
. 6,500
Wadi Lajal.
Traghen
. 1,500
Tekertiba
Ug^aefe
• •
1,000
800
Zuila ....
Temissa
. 1,000
600
Ubari
1,200
Other Oases.
Jedid .
1,500
Fogha ....
. 1,000
I'Lftijla
1,000
Gatrun ....
. 1,500
Temenhint
800
Te Jerri ....
800
TUNISIA.
Area (1897) 51,000 sq. miles
Approximate population (1898) . . . 1,700,000
Europeans in Tunisia (1896), 55,000.
Palm Groves of the Tunisian Oases.
Oasis of Tozer 313,000 palms
,, Nafta 240,000 „
„ El-Udian 188,000 „
,, El-Hamma 80,000 „
Mussulmans
Europeans
Jews
Approximate Population of Tunis (1898)
i Tunisians, properly so called .
Algerians, Mzabitcs, or Swafas
Sundry .....
Total
SiiippiNQ of Goletta (1896), 865,000 tons.
Education (1896).
Public Schools 89
Private Primary Schools 96^
Mo.tquc and Normal Schools ...... 3
Tot;il Attendance 15,000
78,000
5,000
2,000
40,000
28,000
153,000
t t
APPENDIX.
485
Total SnippiNO of Tunisia (1896).
Steamers and Sailing vessels, 8,389 ; tonnage, 1,80G,000.
1SS3
Imports, £848,940
Exports, £524,615
Total Teade of Tunisia.
1806.
Imports, £1,860,000
Exports, £1,400,000
Total £1,373,585
£3,260,000
Teade of Tunis and Teipoli with Great Britain.
Exports to Great Britain (1896) £62,430 ; imports from Great Britain (1896) £213,840.
Budget of Tunisia (1897).
Income, £947,000 ; expenditure, £917,000.
Debtof the Bey of Tunis (1898) £5,700,000
Railways and Telegraphs.
Railways (1884)
Railways (1896)
Telegraphs (1896)
mileage 433
883
„ 2,000
Administbative Divisions and Chief Towns of Tunisia.
Utans or Governments.
Tunis ....
Goletta ....
Mohammedia and Mornuk
Hammam-Lif
Bizerta
Hater .
Tabarka
Beja
El-Kef .
Tebursuk
Testur .
Mejez-el-Bab
Teburba
Zaghwan
Soliman .
Sahel and Susa
Monastir
Mahdiya
Sf akes and Kerkennah
Kairwan
Gafsa
Jerid
Arad
Utan Guebli
Jerba .
Chief Towns.
Tunis
Goletta
Bizerta
Mater
Tabarka
Beja
El-Kef
Tebursuk
Teburba
Zaghwan
I Nabel .
I Kelibia .
iSusa
Msaker> .
Kelaa-Kebira
/ Monastir
Jemal
Moknin .
Bokalta .
V Tebulba .
Mahdiya
Sfakes .
Kairwan
Gafsa .
/ Tozer Oasis
I Nafta Oasis
( El-Udian Oasi
Cabes .
Humt-Suk
Population
(1897).
153,000
7,000
13,000
3,700
1,000
4,000
5,700
2,800
2,500
3,200
4,800
2,900
12,000
10,000
7,000
7,500
6,000
6,000
4,000
3,000
6,000
42,500
12,000
4,500
10,000
8,000
3,800
13,000
3,000
Departments.
Algiers
Oran . » .
Constantine
ALGEKIA.
Area (sq. miles).
. 65,929 .
. 44,616 .
. 73,929 .
Total 184,474
Population
(Census 18;)6).
1,526,667
1,028,248
1,874,506
Total 4,429,421
486 APPENDIX.
Mean Axncal Tempekature and Rainfall on the Aigekian Coast.
Mean tempera ttire. Mean rainfall.
Oran 61° Fahr. ... 12 iuchea
Alters ...... 63° ,, ... 28 ,,
riiilippeville ..... 63° ,, ... 34 ,,
Lii Callo 65° ,, ... 37 „
Aula and Popilation oi' Kaiiylia without Palestuo and 13eni Mansuk (1896).
Population. Area in Acres.
Great Kabylia (Arrondissement of Tizi-Uzu) . 507,000 . . 1,392,000
Little Kabylia ( „ „ Bougie; . 283,000 . 1,211,000
Population of Oran.
French andJews 30,000
Poreigners 32,000
Mobammedaus 12,000
Total . . . 74,000
PorUL.VTION OF THE ALGERIAN ClOSED BaSINS AND ALGERIAN SAHARA (1S9G).
French . . * 4,500
Naturalised Jews .......... 2,000
Foreigners 2,500
Total . . 9,000
Progress of the Population of Algeria since 1851.
. 2,551,121
. 2,416,225 : Decrease, 137,890
. 2,857,626 ; Increase, 451,401
. 4,429,421 : „ 1,571,795
Censusof 1851— 52
1872
1878
1896
Vital Statistics of the European Population of Algeria (1881-96).
Province of Algeria . . 93,000 births, 82,000 deaths.
„ Oran . . . 50,000 ,, 55,000 ,,
„ Constantino . 42,000 „ 28,000 „
Vital Statistics for the whole of Algeria (1886 — 1896).
Births 145,000 ; deaths, 124,000. Increase, 21,000.
French and Foreigners in Algeria since 1833.
1833 French, 3,483 Foreigners, 4,329
1845 ,, 48,274 ,, 61,126
1851 „ 66,050 „ 65,233
1896 „ 318,000 „ 446,000
Population of Algerl^ according to Nationalities (1890).
Natives (Arabs and Berbers) ....... 3,757,000
French 318,000
Naturalised Jews 88,000
Spaniards 152,000
Italians 50,000
lilaltesc and other Britifih subjects ..... 26,000
Germans 3,000
Other Europeans 35,000
Total . . 4,229,000
Mean Discharge of the three Chief Rivhhs in .(Vlqekia.
Area of BaHin. Discharge in Cubic Feet.
Macta 4,280 wi- miles . ♦ 28,000
Shelif 15,300 ,, . 60,000
Seybouflc 4,000 ,, 35,000
APPENDIX.
487
"Wells sunk hetween the Yeaks 185G— iSOG.
Total depth
Total yield
48,000 yards
4,000,000,000 cubic feet per annum.
Wed Riqh
1856.
1896.
31
43
282
570
220 gals.
300
300,000
700,000
40,000
120,000
£GG,000
£310,000
0,722
18,000
Number of oases .
Number of wells .
Yield per second .
Number of date-palms .
* Number of other fruit-trees
Value of produce .
Population .
Wild Bkasts killed in Algeria during the Eight Yeaks feom 1872 to 1880.
Lions, lionesses, and whelpg . lj,l
Panthers ..........,_ ggg
Hyaenas . . . • 1^483
Jackals 22,619
COKAL FlSHEEIES ON TUE La CaLLE CoAs^T. ,*
1821. Men employed, 2, GOO ; yield, 892 cwts. ; value, £100,000.
1896. „ „ 1.500 ,, 630 „ ,, £60,000.
Tbade and Shipping of Bona (IS'JG).
Vessels, 1,280; toimage, 1,023,000; value of cargoes, £3,230,000.
Trade and Shipping of Philippeville with Stoha (1895).
Vessels, 1,780 ; tonnage, 683,000 ; value of cargoes, £36,000.
Shipping of Collo (1895).
Vessels, 750 ; tonnage, 187,000.
Shippinq of JiJELii (1895).
Vessels 766 ; tonnage, 11,445.
Shipping of Bougie (1894). ,
Vessels, 1,081 ; tonnage, 47,630.
Tbade and Shipping op Algiers (1895).
Entered, 3,127 vessels ; tonnage, 2,520,000. Cleared, 3,109 Vessels ; tonnage, 2,513,000. Total vessels,
6,236 ; total tonnage, 5,033,000.
Value of Cargoes.
Imports £6,130,000
Exports 4,213,000
Total
£10,343,000
Shipping of Mo^tagenem (1895).
Entered, 153 vessels ; tonnag'e, 67,000. Cleared, 152 vessels ; tonnage, 65,500. Total 305 vessels;
tonnage, 132,500. Total, with coasters, 780 vessels ; tonnage, 260,000.
Shipping of Arzeu (1895).
126 vessels ; tonnage, 87,000.
Shipping of Oean and Mees-el-Kebir.
Entered (1875), 323,450 tonnage. Entered (1884), 667,728 tonnage. Total shipping (1895), 5,200
vessels ; 2,120,000 tonnage. Fishing smacks, 370 ; value of the fisheries, £47,000.
Shipping of Beni-Saf (1895).
376,000 vessels ; tonnage, 225,000.
Shipping of Nemours (18'j5).
320 vessels; tonnage, 71,000.
* »
488
APPENDIX.
1831
1896
Gekebal Tkade of Algeria.
Imiwrta. Exports. Total.
. £260,000 . £59,000 . £319,000
£11,000,000 £10,000,000 , £21,000,000
1892
1890
Shipping (1896).
Entereil 1,G50 vessels; tonnage 895,618
Cleared 1,641 ,, „ 878,212
Total . 3,291 1,773,830
Coasting Trade, 7,836 ; tonnage, 1,378,950.
FoEEiGN Shippixg Enteeed (1896).
French vessels 1,703 ; tonnage, 1,177,000
English „ 624 „ 578,000
Spanish ,, 520 „ 131,000
Italian ,, 587 ,, 149,000
Total
3,434
2,023,000
Tbade of Aloeeia with Great Britain.
♦" Exports to Great
Britain.
£674,000
631,000
Imports from
Great Britain.
£333,000
257,000
Suk-Ahras
Tebessa
Civil Commu.nes in the Mejeeda Basin.
Population (1S96).
6,120 of whom 3,786 Europeans
3,335 ,, 1,120 „
Chief Civil Cojqiunes in the Noeth-east and Sebouse Basin.
Bona
La Calle, with Um-Thebul
Guelma, with Ain-Tuta .
Wed Zenati, with Ain-Regada
Kandou, with Wed Besbes
Duzen-ille
Ain-Mokhra . . • ..
Cuiev Civil Commu.nes of the Safsaf anu Wed-el
Keiiib Basin, with Neigiibotjeino CoASTr.ANDS.
Topulation (1896).
Constantine
.
,
. 45,800 of whom 32,000
rhilippcvillo
. 21,000 „ 18,000
Conde-Smendu
. 12,000 „ 1,300
Bizot
. 7,200 „ 380
El-Khrub
. 7,420 ,, 730
Mila
6,900 „ 410
Ruffash .
. 6,840 ,, 490
Wed Atmeniu
. 5,800 „ 365
Kobertville
. 4,920 „ 685
Jijelli .
. 5,130 ,, 2,270
Humma ,
. 4,600 „ 320
Saint-.Vmaud
. 4,180 ,, 490
El-liarrush
. 3,700 ,, 780
Uliid Riihinuu
. 3,410 ,, 390
Gastonvillo
. 2,960 „ 340
Duqucsno
. 2,850 „ 320
El-Kantur
2,900 „ 210
Sidi Merwan
. 2,720 „ 515
Saint- Charles
. 2,600 „ 39(5
Aiu-Smara
. 2,310 ,, 140
CoUo
. 2,560 „ 770
Population 11896).
33,000 of whom 27,000 Europeans
6,530
6,750
8,900
5,520
3,480
2,715
4,980
2,570
610
615
620
1,530
< t
APPENDIX.
48y
Civil Communes of Geeat Kabylia.
Population (1896).
Tizi-Uzu ....
. 27,300 of whom 1,930 Euroi
Deilys ....
. 19,200 ,, 2,570 ,
Bois-Sacre
. 7,900 „ 560
Rebeval ....
5,830 ,, 370 ,
Dra-el-Mizan .
. 2,700 „ 680
Fort National .
255 ,, 255 ,
Isserville
Minerville
Palestro
Borj-Menaiel .
Chief Civil Communes of the Isser Basin.
Population (1896).
5,860 of whom 690 Europeans
5,730 .., 1,180
3,100 „ 890
Communes of the Sahel
Algiers . . . •
Mustapha
Busarea, El-Biar
Saint-Eugene
Hussein-dey
Algiers, with outskirts
Blida .
Bufarik .
Tonduk .
Rovigo
L'Arba .
Kolea .
Marengo
Muzaiaville
Duera .
Suma
L'Alma.
Sheraga
Eivet
Maison- Carrie
2,410
830
VXD MiTIJA WITH OYER 3,000 INHABITANTS.
Population (1896).
85,000 of whom 70,000 Europeans
16,000 „ 14,0J0 „
10,000
13.5,000
26,000
10,300
7,900
6,800
6,200
5,900
4,560
3,950
4,380
3,850
3,800
3,720
3,400
3,900
8,500
120,000
9,200
6,800
2,700
850
2,100
3,180
2,140
1,700
2,260
860
980
2,860
680
2,300
Chief Civil Communes of
Guraia .
Shershell
Tenes .
Montenotte
THE Dahra District.
Population (1896).
26,000 of whom 830 Europeans
8,650 „ 3,100 „
4,900 „ 1,830
3,620 ,, 580
Chief Communes of the Shelif Basin.
Depabtmejjt op Algieks- Population (1896).
]y;e^ea, 18,200 of whom 9,300 Europeans
Orleansville .
lliliana
Duperre
Teniet-el-Haad
Saint- Cyprien des Attaf
Affreville
Boghar . . . •
Boghari
Detaetment op Oban—
Mostaganem
Eelizane . <
Pont du Shelif
Abukir.
AFRICA I.
9,780
7,200
5,910
3,600
3,470
2,860
2,820
2,600
17,000
7,500
3,930
2,870
.5,100
3,400
1,110
700
930
930
810
730
9,800
5,100
380
930
A- A-
> I
190
APPENDIX.
Chief Communes ox the Western Tell,
Population (1896).
Oran
73,600 of wl
lom 58,000 Euro]
ncmccn . . . .
. 34,800
18,300
Ain-Tomiishent .
8,400
5,600
Bcni-Saf . . • .
6,100
3,500
Misserghin . . . .
4,830
3,960
Nemours . . . .
3,480
2,230 „
Nedroma . . . .
. 23,800
2,760
COSLXUNES AND ChIEF ToWNS OF AvRES, HoDNA, THE OrAN PlATEAVX, AND ALGERIAN SAHARA.
Pbotiscb of Constastine-
Suf District
Pbovisck op Aloikks—
Biskra .
Batna .... 6,800
Msila .... 2,920
Population (1896).
20,870 of whom 1,120 Europeans
2,600
360
Tugurt .
El-Wed
Guemar
Kuinin
Bu-Sada (mixed commune)
Jelfa
Laghwat
6,800 —
9,760 —
4,680 —
3,120 —
6,300 of whom 470 Europeans
970
3,900
320
130
SIzab District (
PaOVIXCE OF Oiux—
'Ghardaya (mixed commune) 10,428
Beni-Isguen ,, 4,695
Berrian ,, 4,440
Guerara „ 2,940
Melika „ 1,760
El-Atef „ 1,670
^Bu-Nura „ 1,190
Wargla . . ,2,100
El-Golea .... 1,576
Geryrille (mixed commune) 970
Population of the three Provincul Capitals (1896).
Algiers 82,580
Oran , , . . ^ 74,510
Constantine , . , . , 40 580
Returns of the Genetese Colonisation Ccmpany, Setif (1884),
Domain, 39,000 acres, of which 2,760 fallow.
Value of the estate, £220,000.
Revenue for the year 1881, £17,580.
Population, 2,982 Natives ; 205 Eiuropeans; total, 3,247.
Returns for TirE Tlemcen District (1S96).
Orange groves .........
Olivo , . .
Gardens and orchards .......
Vineyards
Total under cultivation
85 acres
1,830 „
2,200 „
2,150 ,,
6,265 acres
Returns for the Wargla Oasis (189G).
Palm groves (number of trees)
Palms yielding fruit
Native artesian wells
Ordinary wells
Yearly yield of dates (ton«)
620,000
280,000
410
600
9,000
f «
APPENDIX.
491
Extent of Forests in the Tell District (1896).
State forests .... a tnn nnn
4,400,000 acres
Commmial and tribal forests jgo qqq
Private forests 2 17o'ooO
Total forests in Algeria . 5,762,000 „
Olives grafted by Europeans and natives . . . g.oOO 000
OU imported (1882) '. / s'^qoO quintals
„ exported (1896) 2,000
Cork exported (1896), 22,000 quintals ; value, £30,000.
Orange Groves of Blida.
1,000 acres; average yield, 40,000,000 oranges; value, £32,000.
MmiNQ Industry.
Mines open (1896), 17; hands employed, 2,100. ,
Yield of the Beni-Saf mines (1896) : 94,200 tons of iron ores.
Aqeictulttteal Eetuens (1896).
Area,
Quantity,
Cereals.
Acres.
Quintals.
AVheat .
. 3,278,000
7,171,000
Eye
1,000
2,420
Barley .
. 3,387,000
8,412,000
Oats
180,000
755,000
Others .
100,000
337,000
Total revenue
of the
palm groves .
£1,825,000
ExPOET OF Alfa Grass, chiefly to England.
1859 . . 10,500 metric quintals
1869 90,000 „
1870 370,000
1896 8,160,000 tons
1850
1864
1876
1882
1884
1896
Europea
Natives
^iNICVLTCEE.
Ls, 2,000 acres ;
Yield,
150,000 gallons
29,000 ,,
,,
1,600,000 ,,
42,000 „
!)
5,500,000 „
100,000 ,,
,,
17,000,000 „
150,000 ,,
,,
22,400,000 „
305,000 „
,,
95,700,000 ,,
l^ards (1896) .
. 16,535
. 23,000
Chief Articles of Export (1896).
Wine
£2,100,000
Live Stock ....
850,000
Cereals . . . , .
830,000
Wool
554,000
Tobacco ....
145,000
Iron ores ....
85,000
Cork '.....
72,000
Mineral springs frequented (1896), 53 ; vifiitors, 7,900.
492
APPENDIX.
Live Stock.
Horses
Mules
Asses
Cattle
Camels
Sheep
Goats
Pigs
Total
1882.
139,552 I
133,216 f
210,112
1,027,913
154,248
5,142,321
3,056,660
45,860
9,909,882
Beehives
European rural population (1896), 205,000.
AORICTTLTUEAL StOCK (1882).
1896.
357,657
286,803
1,121,246
255,408
7,891,979
3,545,041
86,588
13,544,719
209,000
Owned by
Owned by
Eiuopeaiis.
Natives.
Total.
Ploughs . , .
35,841
251,440
287,281
Carts and waggons .
20,257
865
21,122
Other implements
32,512
2,137
34,649
Total .
88,610
254,442
343,052
Value .
. £593,000
£157,000
£750,000
Roads and Railways.
Carriage roads open (1896), 8,400 miles ; outlay, £3,400,000
Railways open (1896) 2,156 miles
Capital invested £39,000,000
^ Receipts (1896) £1,320,000
Teiegbaph System (1896).
Mileage, 5,000; wires, 10,67Omiles.
ComniNAL Divisions op Algebu (1896).
•
Area in acres.
Topulation.
Civil Department
i Civil Communes with full rights . 4,788,000
[ ,, ,, mixed . . 21,860,000
1,445,000
1,255,000
Military Department
[ Mixed „
[ Native „
Total
7,770,000
87,290,000
122,508,000
85,000
1,645,000
4,430,000
Finance (1897).
Revenue
EXPENDITUEE.
Direct Taxes
. £480,000
Finance ....
. £20,000
Registration, Stamps, &(
^ . 312,000
Justice and Worship
. 143,000
CuHtoms .
. 485,000
Interior ....
. 940,000
Monopolies
. 220,000
Instruction
200,000
Domains and Forests
130,000
Public Works
. 880,000
Various .
330,000
Regie, &c. .
610,000
Receipts d'Ordre
. 150,000
Repayments, &c. .
Total .
. 200,000
Total .
£2,107,000
£2,993,000
PlBLIC "N
VOESIUI'. ,
Roman Catholics, 860,000 ; expenditure, £32,000. Protestants, 11,000; expenditure, £4.200.
Mohammedans, 3,530,000; expenditure, £600. Total, 4,404,000 ; exiienditure, £36,700.
t C
APPENDIX.
493
Public Insteuction (1896).
Primary schools in civil territory .
Franco -Arab schools ....
Jewish schools
980, of which 850 secular, 180 religious
63
12
Total .
1,055
Attendance at the Peimaey Schools.
French
Jews
Foreigners
Mohammedans
Total
Franco-Arab schools in the military divisions
Mussulman ,, ,, ,,
Lifant Asylums
Total
Boya.
Girls.
Total.
■»
18,000
19,000
37,000
6,500
5,000
11,500
6,850
6,830
13,680
3,400
680
3,980
66,160
34,750
31,410
, ,
13
Attendance
860
510
>>
6,280
•
230
753
. In.nate8
25,000
.
32,140
Secondary schools, 17 ; attendance, 4,230.
Higher Schools and Colleges (1898).
Academy 463 Students
4 Lycees 1,936 ,,
7 Communal colleges ........ 1,132 ,,
1 Girls' college 170 ,,
Total . . . 3,701 „ »
Alqeeian Aemy (1898).
Zuaves 3 Kegunents
Tirailleurs • 3 „
Foreign Legions 2 „
Light Infantry ■* . . -3 Battalions
Chasseurs d'Afrique 3 Regiments
Spahis 3 ,,
Artillery 12 Batteries
Engineers 3 Companies
Train 9 f.
Teeeitoeial Aestt Ebseeve.
Zuaves 10 Battalions
Cavah-y 3 Squadrons
Artillery 10 Batteries
Total about 25,000 men and officers, constituting the 19th Army Corps of the French Land Forces,
and 10,000 Reserves, besides the Tirailleurs sahariens, lately organised for the defence of the southern
frontiers against the incursions of the predatory Tuareg tribes of the Western Sahara.
Department. Sub-divisions.
C Algiers
Aumale
Aloibbs I Medea
Orleansville
Dellys
MiLiTAEY DryisiONs.
Department. Sub-divisions.
Oean
, Oran
J Mascara
[ Tlemcen
Department. 6ub-diviBions.
CoNSTANTlNE
, Constantino
\ Bona
Batua
Setif
i i
494
APPENDIX.
Administbative Divisions
Departments.
Constantine:
7 Arrondissements
66 Civil Communes
32 MLxed ,,
7 Native „
Algiers :
5 Arrondissements
82 Ci\'il Communes
29 MLxed , ,
4 Native ,,
Oean : _
6 Arrondissements
63 Civil Communes
23 MLxed ,,
3 Native ,,
OF Algeria, with the Chief Towns of Communes havinq over One
Thousand Inhabitants.
Arrondissements.
Bona
Bougie
Batna
Constantino
Guclina .
PhilippeviLlc
Setif
Algiers •
Medea
Miliana .
Orleansville
I Tizi-uzu .
/ Mascara .
Mostaganem
Oran
Sidi-bel-Abbes
Tlemcen .
Communes.
Bona, La Calle
Bougie, Jijelli
Batna, Biskra
( Constantine, Mila, Tebossa, Conde-
^ Smendix
Guclma, Suk-Ahras
Philippevillc, Stora, Jemmapes, Collo
Setif, Borj, Bu-Arrerig, Saint- Arnaud
Algiers, Mustapha, Saint-Eugene,
Blida, Bufarit, Shershell, Kolca,
Menei-ville, Duera, Maison-Carree,
Hussein-dey, Marengo, Aumale,
Arba
Medea, Boghari
( Miliana, Teniet - cl - Haad, Affre -
\ ville
Orleansville, Tenes
Tizi-uzu, Dellys
Mascara, Frenda
Mostaganem, Relizane
Oran, Saint-Denis-du-Sig, Ain-Temu-
shent, Saint-Leu, Arzeu, Tiaret,
Saint-Cloud, Perrcgaux, Mers-el-
Kebir, Misserghin, Saint-Barbe-du-
Tlelat
Sidi-bel-Abbes, Tcssala
Tlemcen, Nedroma, Nemours
Board op Native Affairs.
DirectionB.
Constantine
Aloiebs
Oban .
Sub-divisions.
I Tebessa
Batna
. ' Bona
Msila
[ Setif
/ Aumale
* j Medea
Daya
■ "i Mascara
1 Tlemcen
Circles and Annexes.
{ Batna, Biskra, Barika, Khenehela, La
( Calle, Suk-Ahras
Aumale, Bu-Sada
Boghar, Jelfa, Laghwat, Shellala,
Ghardaya
Mascara, Ain-Sefra, Geryville, Tiaret
Saida
Aflu
Lalla-Magbnia, Sebdu
MAEOCCO.
Area 220,000 square miles
Approximate population 8,000,000 to 9,000,000
Population according to Rohlfs .... 2,750,000
Tempebatube at Mogador.
Aagust, hottest month 70° Fahr.
February, coldest ,, ........ 61° ,,
Mean for the year 67° ,,
]\laximum heat recorded 88° ,,
Minimum ,, 50° ,,
Teade of Tetuan (1896), £52,000.
Tbade and Shipping of Tangier (189G),
Vessels, 1,210 ; Tonnage, 324,000.
Imports
Exports
£437,000
682,000
Total
£1,019,000
APPENDIX.
495
Trade and Shipping of El-Araisu (1896).
Vessels, 152 ; tonnage, 63,600 ; value of cargoes, £280,000.
Trade and Shipping of Rbat-Sla (1896).
Vessels, 110 ; tonnage, 59,800 ; value of cargoes, £170,000.
Trade and Shipping of Casablanca (1896).
Vessels, 233 ; tonnage, 145,400 ; value of cargoes, £373,000.
Trade and Shipping of Mazagan (1896).
Vessels, 212; tonnage, 131,000; value of cargoes, £360,000.
Trade and Shipping of Asfi (1883).
Vessels, 114 ; tonnage, 68,000 ; value of cargoes, £174,000.
Trade and Shipping of Mooador (1883).
Vessels, 149 ; tonnage, 114,000 ; value of cargoes, £168,000.
Tn.vDE OF Makocco (1896).
Imports £1,315,538
Exports 1,286,847
Total
£2,602,385
Trade of Marocco with France (1896).
Imports £445,000
Exports . . . , 358,000
1878
1879
1880
1881
1896
otal
£803,000
jrREAT Britain.
Exports to
Great Britain.
Imports from
Great Britain.
£391,369
£191,292
154,270
245,037
350,564
246,584
246,051
270,292
938,000
778,000
Shipping op Marocco (1896).
2,316 Vessels ; tonnage, 914,400.
Live Stock (Approximate Estimate).
Sheep
. 40,000,000
Goats
.»
. 11,000,000
Oxen . .
5,500,000
Asses and mules
.
4,000,000
Horses
500,000
Camels
* * ■
Total
500,000
. 61,500,000
Finance (1896).
Imperial revenue
.
£510,000
Estimated expenditure
320,000
Admin
ISTRATIVE DrVISIONS AND
Chief Towns
OF Marocco, with
Approximate Populations.
Amalat.
Chief Towns.
Population.
Amalat.
Chief Towns. P
jpulation.
IJjDA
Ujda .
8,000
/ Meknes .
1 Zerhun .
( Sefni .
25,000
Tatia .
; Taza
• \ Debdu .
3,500
Fum-el-GhAIU5 .
6,000
2,000
3,000
Tettjan
Tetuan .
22,000
/ Azemmur
J Casablanca .
' Mazagan
3,000
Tanja
( Tangier.
\ Sheshawen .
. 30,000
3,500
Azemmur .
7,000
2,500
. El-Araish
4,000
Tadla
Kasbah Beni-Mcllal
3,000
GUARB-EL-
_ Kasr-el-Kebir
ISAR . < Tir
i VVezzan
5,500
Demnata
Demnata
3,000
. 3,000 (?)
Marrakesii
Marraketili (Marocco)
50,000
(Fez* . .
. 140,000
Haha
Mogadur
18,000
Ebat (Rabat) . Ebat Sla
. 35,000
Abda
Asfi . . .
3,000
J }
#
40C
APPENDI2.
Vassal oe Independent States.
Amalat.
Chief Tow-ns.
Topulation.
Amalat.
Cluef Towns. Vt
IHilation.
rap .
. Tiiforsit
—
Wed-Db.va
( Tiimagnit .
■ ( Beni-Sbili .
—
Wed-Sus .
Tiinidant .
. 8.300
—
Tazzebult .
. Hegrh .
—
Taftt.kt.t
f Ez-Zerigat .
4,000
Wed-Min .
f Fiiniel-Hossiin
—
( Abuam, Er-Kissani
—
^ Ogulniin
—
Kenatsa .
Kenatsa
2,000
•
FiGUIG
Zenaga
5,000
Spanish Possessions.
,
McUlla * .
.
. 3,500
1 Ceuta
. 7,800
THE SAHARA.
Approximate area 2,500,000 square miles
population 500,000
<
Main Divisions, with Ajppboxtmate Populations.
Ennedi \
Tibesti [ 50,000
Wajanga ' "
Borku 12,000
Kawar and neighbouring Oases 5,000
Air 100,000
Territory of the Northern Tuaregs 30,000
Territory of the Southern Tuaregs | ^. qqq
(AweUimiden, North of the Niger) i
Twat Oases, Wed Saura Basin, \ .„« «««
and tributary valleys ) ' '
Western Sahara 25,000
Total .... 387,000
«
StJPEEFICIAL AeEA, WITH TbIPOLITANA AND THE MaUBITANIAN SaTTAKA.
Hamadas and serirs 1,440,000 square miles.
Mountainous and rocky districAs .... 800,000 ,,
Steppes and pastures 600,000 ,,
Sandy wastes 340,000 ,,
Oases and cultivable lands 80,000 ,,
Total . . . 3,260,000 „
Towns and Settlejcents in the Twat Oases and Sauiu Basins, with Appeoximate Popxtlations.
Population.
Karzas (Wed Saura) 2,000
Ulad-Raffa 2,000
Sherwin (Gurara District) 1,300 (?)
Sharef and Sidi Araoar Zawya 2,000 (?)
Brinken (T.sabit District) 3,000
Adrar 2,500
Tamentit 6,000
Taurirt 3,000
Tillulin .-J.OOO
Kasr-el-Arb (Insakh) 1,550
t »
\
INDEX
Abd-en-Nur, 249
Abdi, 297
Abeidats, 10
Abid, 256
Absen, 463
Abuam, 403
Abukir, 286
Abu Nairn Oasis, 56
Abyla, Mount, 355
Addar, Cape, 105, 123
Aderer, 473
Ad Fratres, 295
Adgbagh, 469
Ad Piscinam, 303
Adrar, 97, 209, 440, 471
Adrar Settuf, 473
Adrar (Tassili), 439
Adrar (Twat), 461
Afafi Mountairis, 426
AffreviUe, 284
Aflu, 308
Agadem Oasis, 437
Agades, 463, 468
Agadir (Wed Sus), 395
Agadir, Rock of, 395
Agadir (Tlemceii), 290
Agail, 19
Agha, 269
Aghelad, 91
Aghmat, 390
Aglu, 396
Agram Oasis, 437
Abaggar, 212
Ahlaf, 309
Ain-Abessa, 252
Barbar, 244
Beida, 212, 240
Bessem, 252
Drabam, 188
Ain-esb-Shelad, 16
Ain-el-Fers, 84
Ain-el-Hajar, 286
Ain-es-Sultan, 302
Kebrit, 23
Kerma, 249
Mahdi, 306
Mita, 219
Mokhra, 245, 327
Ruina, 289
Sefra, 318
Shair, 404
Sisifa, 210
AFRICA I.
Ain Smara, 249
Taiba, 420, 421
Tekbalek, 290
Temusbent, 290
Tuta, 242
Yakut, 300
Air (Abir), 463
Aissawa, 136
Ait-Atta, 401
Bu-Yussef, 254
Fraucen, 254, 25S
Ijer, 258
Ijermenen, 254
Iraten, 257, 259
Mebrad, 402
Mlikesh, 256
Sdig, 402
Sedrat, 401
Ugbli, 256
Waguennun, 256
Yabia, 255
Yenni, 258
Yussi, 381
Ajabia, 22
Ajenon River, 213
Ajim, 143
Akabah-el-Soloum, 5
Akakus Mountains, 93
Akarit River, 118
Akbail, 364
Akbu, 252
Akebli, 462
Akka, 401
Aksabi, 473
Alboran, 372
Algeria, 197
Algiers, 268
Albucemas, 372
Alma, 276
Altkirch, 249
Amadghor, 444
Amamra, 230
Amarawa, 256
Ammoedara, 180
Amur Mountains, 99, 2
Amura, 284
Ampelusion, 355
Amra, 403, 404
Amzigh, 254, 447
Andalus, 100, 135
Anfa, 387
Angad, 370
II
ASgra des Ruyvos, 482
Anbef, 441
Annuna, 240
Anti-Atlas, 347, 352, 400
Anti-Pyrgos, 13
Apollonia, 15
Arabs, 10, 51, 130, 369, 448
Ara-wan, 477
Arba, 318
Arbet, Mount, 106
Arsb-Shuf, 84
Arsinoe, 19
Arzeu, 286
Asben, 463
Asbenava, 464 i
Asfi, 389
Asia, 318
Assaka River, 359
Assir, 10
Assodi, 467 *
Atakor, 441
Atlas Mountains, 96, 348
Atriya, 88
Attar, 481
Augwerut, 460
Aulad-Ali, 10
Aulad-Bellil, 89
Aulad-Bu-Seif, 52
Aulad-Khris, 51, 147
Aulad-SUman, 51, 77, 433
Aulad Yusef, 53
Aujila Oasis, 23
Aumale, 252
Auraghen, 46
Aurasius, Mons, 296
Aures, Auras Moimtains, 296
Auzia, 252
Awagbirs, 10
A war a, 395
AwcUimiden, 447, 463
Azazga, 264
Azeifun, 256, 267
Azemmur, 388
Azib-Zamun, 268
AzUa (Ar-Zcila), 377
Azjar, 88, 91, 439, 447
Azun, 343
Bab-el- Jezira, 170
Babor Mountains, 208
Bades, 297
J J
498
INDEX.
Badis, 373
Baela, 424
Bagrai, 296
Baghson, 464
Bahariat. 404
Bahira, Lake, 110, 169
Bahira(el), 110, 112
Bahirct-cI-Bil)fin, 110, 130
Bahr-cl-Dud. 71, 430
Bahr-cl-Ghazal, 427
Bahr-ol-Trunifl, 71
Bahr-Tabtani, 220
Bani Mountains, 352
Barakat, 92'
Baranis, 152
Bardai, 426, 433
Bardo, 174
Barka, 1, 19
Barka-cl-Bcida, 6
Barka-cl-Hamra, 6
Bairal, 242
Batna. 297
Mountains, 297
Batofl. 25
Bcguira, 206
Beja, 185
Beja, River, 110
Bejaia, 253
Bel Abbas, 471
Bel Khush, 388
Belcourt, 269
Beled-el-Jerid, 126
Ben-Afien, 70
AU Sherif, 261
Benghazi, 10, 19
Beni-Abbas, 459
Abbes, 269
Aisha, 268
Amran, 267*
Brahim, 314
Gumi, 407
Guil, 404
Ea^an, 353
Hassan Mountains, 354
Hesscm, 385
Isguen, 314
Iznaten, 372, 412
Jafer, 357
Mansur, 252
Mellal, 388
Mezghanna, 268
Mgill, 370
Mohammed, 400
Mu(^ Mountains, 206
Mzab, 60, 309
Bamassee, 244
8af, 294
Shugran Mountains, 206
Siiwin, 314
Sliman. 202
8mir, Mount, 210
Ulid, 59
Ummia, 92, 451
TVaggin, 314
WfiHit, 87
Yahsen, 264
Yenni, 264
Zid, 133, 145
Bf rahor, 363, 399
Bembirth, 479
Benisji, 10
BcrliaH, 474
BcTl)crH, 49, 130
BctImtu MountiiiiiH, 104
Boronice, H, 19
Borriaii, 314
Bcrwaghia, 267
Bibun Mountains, 210, 351
Biban, Lake, 130
Bibawan, 351
Bidevat, 424
Bilma, 436
Bir-cn-Nsof, 117
Bir-Meshru, 81
Rabalu, 252
Rassam, 23
Biskra, 303
Biskri, 200
Bizerta, 185
Bizcrta Lake, 107, 120
Bizot, 249
Blandan, 242
Blad Guitun, 267
Bled-el-Makhzen, 346
Bled-es-Seba, 346
BUda, 276
Boanimi, 406
Boca-Grande, 398, 474
Boghar, 213, 283
Boghari, 282
Bograra, 149
Bois-Sacre, 266
Bojador, 348, 475
Bokalta, 154
Bomba, Gulf, 6, 13
Bon, Cape, 123
Bona, 240, 242
Borj-Boghni, 265
Borj -el-Bab, 120
Borj-el-Kantara, 120
Borj-el-Zenzela, 185
Jedid, 143, 187
Menaiel, 267
Borku, 424, 431
Bomu, 437
Bougie, 253
Brahim, 314
Braiga, 36, 67
Brak, 79
Brakna, 480
Brezina, 215, 319
Brinken, 461
Bu-Arrerij, 252
Bu-Daud, 256
Bu-Der^a, 210
Bu-ol-Jad, 388
Bu-Gadir, 16
Bu-Ghanen, 128
Bu-Hanefia, 286
Bu-Hedma, 106, 126
Bu-Kumein, 104, 117
Bu-Mcrzug, 213, 245
Bu-Njeim, 59
Bu-Nura, 314
Bu-Regrag, 359
Bu-Bojid, 153
Bu-SficLa, 301
Bu-Shaib, 258
I5u-Tlclis, 290
Bufarik, 275
Biighar, 283
Bujcma, 242
Bulapd, 370
Biu-kika, 278
Buseima, 29
Buzarca, 275
BjTBa, 176
Byzacona;, 142
Cabes, Gulf, 82, 115, 143
CfOHarea, 279
Callo, 239
Calama, 242
Camarata, 295
Canea, 15
Cantiri, Cape, 389
Capsa, 148
Cartennse, 280
Carthage, 22, 167, 176
Casablanca, 387
Ccdrata, 314
Ceuta, 354, 375
Chiltcaudun, 249
Chella, 385
Chemmish, 377
Cilius, Mons, 40
Cintra, 482
Cirta, 245
Ciesi, 268
Clauzel, 241
Cleopatris, 19
CoUo, 250
Combes, 242
Conde-Smendu, 249
Constantine, 246
Coulmiers, 249
Cudiat, 249
Cydamus, 82
Cyrenaica, 199
Cyrene, 215
Dades, River, 400
Daggetun, 470
Dahra, 206, 213, 278
Dakhla, 97, 109, 215
Dakhelat, 105, 165
Damremont, 249
Dar-el-Beida, 387
Dar-el-Bey, 162
Dar-For, 423
Damis, 14
Daiu-a, 402
Daya, 215
Mount, 206
Daza, 430
Debaya, 360
Debdu, 371
Debroussenlle, 28G
Dedmaka, 132
Deldul, 459
Dellys, 265, 266
Demmed, 309
Demnata, 388
Denhaja, 229
Derga, 210
Dcrj Oasis, 89
Deren, 351
Derid, 132
Dema, 10, 14
Diana Vetcranonim, 301
Dibbela, 418, 437
Dimas, Cape, 122
Dirka, 435
Doghem, 464
Domar, 428
Draa, River, 353, 309
Drael-Mizan, 205
Drawi, 478
Drid, 132
Duar-esh-Shott, 176
Ducra, 402
Dui-Bellal, 401, 477
Dui-Mcnia, 404, 477
Dukkala, 388
Dupcrre, 284
DuijHi'sne, 252
Diivivior, 242
Duz, 145
Duzurville, 242
« »
9
'\
Dwera, 276
Dwirat, 41
Ederi, 79
Edeven, 419, 440
Edugh, Mount, 210, 244
Eghellat, Mount, 464
Eghris, 202
Eguelali, 440
Egueri, 441, 463
El-Abiod, 246
El-Afrun, 277
El-Araish, 377
El-Asnam, 285
El-Attef, 314
El-Barkat, 92
El-Beida, 11
El-Biar, 275, 303
El-Biban, 139
El-Biod, 317
EI-Brija, 388
El-Eglab Mountains, 472
EI-Esnamen, 89
El-Eubbad, 293
El-Ghaib, 389
El-Golea, 316
El-Guedim, 480
, El-Guenater, 473
El-Guerara, 314
El-Guerra, 249
El-Guettar Oasis, 149
El-Hajira, 314
El-Hamma, 126
EI-Hammam, 180
El-Harrush, 249
El-Hodh, 479
El-Istat, 29
El-Jedida, 388
El-Jem, 152
El-Kantara, 336
El-Kantur, 249
El-Kef, 180
El-Kessera, 191
El-Melah, Lake, 118, 287
EI-Miraia, 476
El-Udian, 147
El-Wed, 307
Enfida Domain, 164
Ennedi, 423
Er-Rahel, 290
Erbehna Oasis, 32
Erg, 419
Er-Pdssani, 403
Ertib, 402
Esh-Sherb, 115
Esh-Sherkiya, 73
Eshteh, 1-23
Eskel, 106
Es-SaheH, 404
Es-Suk, 479
Euhesperides, 19
Ez-Zerigat, 402
Faraun, 106
Faredgha Oasis, 2, 12
Fareg River, 23
Fej-el-Moktha, 239
Fenaia, 258
Fer, Cap de, 210
Feriana Oasis, 148
Ferjans, 307
Ferkia, 401
Femana, 189
Fetzara, Lake, 214, 244
Fez, 379
Fez-el-Bali, 379
INDEX.
Fez-el-Jedid, 379
Fezzan, C8
Figuig Oasis, 360, 406
Filfila, 245
Filal, 404
Filhausen, Mount, 204
Flissa-um-el-Lil, 256
Fogha Oasis, 37
Fonduk, 276
Fort-National, 255, 263
Frashish, 133
Freha, 264
Fum-el-Hossan, 398
Fum-el-Khink, 460
Fum Krantina, 300
Gabes, 143
Gafsa Oasis, 106, 148
Garama, 79
Garamantes, 32
Garde, Cap de, 210
Gam, 435
Gatrun, 80
Gerboda, 24
Geryville, 317
Ghadames, 26, 82, 311
Ghaddar, 123
Ghardaya, 309
Ghardimau, 108
Gharia-el-Gharbiya, 59
Gbaria-el-Sherkiya, 59
Ghat, 441
Gheneuma, 460
Gber, Cape, 395
Gbilaniya, 160
Giethis, 149
Glawa, ^00
Gisberawa, 465
Godva Oasis, 72
Goletta, 98, 172, 176
Grana, 137
Great Atlas, 201
Babor, 209
Kabylia, 208, 254
Great Syrtis, 34
Grona, 479
Guara, 328, 456
Guelma, 213, 242, 330
Guemar, 307
Guera-el-Hut, 214
Guera-el-Melali, 214
Guera-el-Ubeira, 214
Guerara, 118, 314
Guerwan, 367
Guettar, 239
Guezzula, 363
Guraia, 280
Guma, 137
Gwader, 398
Habru, River, 213
Hadrumetum, 154
Haha, 394
Haidra, 180
Haizer, 207
Hajar-el-Khanga, 241
Soda, 148
Halk-el-Mengel, 112
Haluk, Mount, 104
Hamada-el-Homra, 38
Hamada-el-Kcbir, 405
Hamamma, 133
Hamian, 404
Gharba, 318
Haniz, 213, 221,276
Hainnia, 276, 326
499
Hamma-el-Beida, 242
Oasis, 276
Hamma-el-Meskhuthin, 228, 240
Hammamet, 105, 164
Hammam Kurbes, 166
Hamniam-Lif, 166
Meluan, 276
Righa, 277
Hanensha, 104, 133, 237
Harabi, 10
Haracta, 240
Haratin, 314, 364
Harrash, 213
Hanij-el-Abiod, 37, TC
Haruj-el-Aswad, 3C5
Haruj Haribs, 478
Hassa, 10
Hassi, 39
Haussonvillers, 268
Heran, 70
HeUopolis, 242
Herbillon, 244
Hergla, 162
Hesperia, 19
Hesperides, 5
Hikena, 441
Hippo, 185, 238, 242
Hippo-Diarrhytus, 185
Hodna, 211
Hofra, 72, 74
Hoggars, 447
Hon, 59
Honein, Cape, 295
Humt-Suk, 143
Hussein-Dey, 276
Iberke, 92
Icosium, 268
Ideles, 440
Idenen, Mountains, 93
Idraren, 97
Deren, 359
Ifni, 398
Ifoghas, 448 '
Igawawen, 255
Igharghar, 82, 113, 215, 441
Ighargharen, 443
IgilgiU, 251
IgH, 407
Iguidi, 419, 471
Ihajenen, 92
Ijil, 480
Ikelan, 406
Ilegh, 397
Ulilten, 258
Illula Asammer, 256
Imanan, 453
Imazighen, 254, 363
Lnohagh, 447, 450
Imosharh, 447
In-Esokal, 440
Inkermann, 285
Insalah, 448, 462
Inzize, 462
Ishbertil, 355
LshU, 480
Isheraiwen, 255
Islay, 370
Isser River, 213
Issawan, 454
Isserville, 207
Itissan, 465, 470
Jaferin Islands, 372
Jahli, 289
Jalo Oasis, 23, 2o
Jara, 143
■y
J )
/
r
600
INDEX.
Jarabub, 12
Jebtl Adrar, 209
Ahaggar, 78, 98, 212, 437,
441
Aian, 353
Aiasliiii, 348
Ait-Wakal, 395
Aklidar, 5, 7, 285
Amur, 210
Aiircs, 97
Bflliunesh, 355
Bu-Khail, 302
Bidbul. ?S
Dim, 210
Dw-irat, 41, 131
El-Melah, 116
Ergcan, 40
Es-Soda, 37, 38, 69
Garian, 50
Ghurian, 40
Iludid, 353, 393
Ilauz, 355
Khadamia, 39, 43
Khawi, 180 f
Miiadhid, 210
Magran, 348
Mu(,a, 355
Msid, 41 t
Mzi, 210
Nari, 32
Nefusa, 50, 106
Ressas, 104
Sattcra, 210
Shagherun, 359
Sheshar, 212, 229
Sirwa, 351
Tafarawi, 206
Tantana, 9K438
Tar, 38
Tibili, 351
TonuBhfi, 206
Terneit, 349
Tiz», 351
Yefren, 41, 106
Jeddi, 210
Jcddi River, 307
Jedeida, 193
Jedid, 79
Jefira, 41, 48
Jelfa, 201, 302
Juinaa-cs-Salmj, 255
Jemaa-cl-Ghazawat, 295
Jemmapes, 245
Jer River, 277
Jeral>a, 55, 131
Jerba Island, 42, 119, 127, 141
JowH, 137, 230
Jijili, 251
Jcmia, 79
Jibbtiia Oasifl, 56
Jilj<m, 251
Jiiict, Cape, 268
J(.f. ;J3
Ji)fni OasiM, 57
Juby, Cape, 396, 475
Juf, 41'J, 471
Jugar, 104
Jurjuni, 27, 207
Jiutiniannpolis, 154
KabyleH, 231, 364
Kabylia, 251
Kiwcabi, 170
Kafaz, Its
Kaf .Mugflad, 3'J
Kuirwaii, 15'J
Kamala Island, 105
Kambi, 252
Kalaa, 159
Kalaa-es-Senam, 104, 237
Kalb-Warkan, 38
Kapudia, 152
Karda, 79
Karuba, 204
Karzaa Oasis, 455, 459
Kasbah-cl-Kedima, 402
El-Aiun, 372
Kasr-el-Jebel, 41, 60
Kasr-el-Kebir, 377
El-Mudenin, 140
Es-Serir, 376
Faraim, 383
Ghurian, 41, 60
Kasrin, 161
Katabathmos Megas, 5
Kawar Oasis, 434
Kebabo Oasis, 33, 428
Kobilli, 145
Kebrit, 23
Kedadifas, 52
Kef, 133
Kef-GuebU, 211
Kelbia, Lake, 112
Kel-Gherea, 465
Kelibia, 165
Kel-MeUel, 457
Kol-Owi, 447, 465
Kelthum, Mount, 211
Kenatsa, 404
Karkennah Islands, 118, 121
Kemia, 249
Kessera, 104
Khairan, 297
Kbanfusa, 440
Kheider, Isthmus, 215
Khemissa, 239
Khenga, 340
Klienshela, 229, 296
Khoms, 61
Khudriat-el-Khadra, 370
Khrima, 316
Khrub, 249
Khrumif, 128
Klirumiria, 128
Khuinir, 102, 127
Kobr-er-Rumia, 277
Kolca, 277
Kombeh, 176
Kounta, 479
Kram, 176
Krennah, 16
Kriz, 147
Ksabi-esh-Shorfa, 370
Ksar-el-Arb, 463
Ksel, 210
Ksur Mountains, 210
Ktawa, 400
Kufra Oasis, 28
Kuka, 427
Kuku, 255
Kullu, 250
Kulugli, 54, 136
Kumoin (Bu), 117
Kurba, 105
Kur-es-Sef, 154
Kuriatc'in Islands, 122
I Kursliiu, 105
KuHsi, Mount, 424
Kwinin, 307
Laghwat, 308
Lajul, 72
Lalla-Gobusha, 389, 390
LaUa-Guraia, 253
Lalla-Khedija, 207, 211
Lalla-Naghnia, 339
Lambessa, 298
Lamoriciere, 290
Larash, 377
Larbaa, 309
Lathon, 22
Lavarande, 284
Lebba, 26, 61
Lemdia, 283
Lemta, 154
Leshkerreh Oaais, 26
Lethe, 22
Liana, 297
Libyans, 230
Lishana, 305
Little Atlas, 206
Kabylia, 352
Wan, 422
Lix, Lixus, 377
Lofra, 69
Lokhmani, Mount, 38
Lua River, 215
Luata, 99, 145, 230
Lukkos, 377
Lurmal, 290
Mabruk, 479
Mabtuka, 110
Macta, 213
Madaniya, 136
Madaura, 239
Mafrag, 239
Maghreb, 95, 197
Maghreb-el-Aksa, 303, 345
Mahacta, 256
Mahdiya, 153
Mahrez, 119
Maison-Carree, 276
Maiz, Mount, 210
Majer, 133, 180
Makarath, 107
Malka, 176
Malua, 357
Mamora, 384
Mamun, 479
Mansura, 294
Manterus Volcano, 4 1
Manuba, 174
Manzuna, 106, 113
Marade Oasis, 56
Marengo, 278
Marguelii, 159
Maribda, 398
Marmorica, 5
Marraaridis, 5, 145
Marocco, 345 «^
Marrakesh, 390
Marsa, 174
Marsa Susa, 15
Marsa Tobruk, 13
Marsa Zafran, 36
Mascara, 286
Mascula, 296
Matamore, 286
Matifu, Cape, 276
Mauritania, 99, 354
Tingitania, 357
Maxyes, 254
Maya, 314
Mazagan, 388
Mazagran, 200, 213, 286
MazeF, 221
Mazuna, 281
Mdaghra, 402
/:
INDEX.
501
Mdaurush, 239
Mebenja, 242
Mebruka, 479
Medea, 202, 277, 283
Medina, 170
Medinet-es-Siiltan, 44, 5C
Medracen, 300
Mehadeba, 149
Mehdiya, 153, 384
Mejana, 227
Mejerda, 98, 102, 108
"* i^ekaidu, 206
Mekerra, 286
Mekla, 264
Meknes, 369, 381
MeUah Gulf, 4
Meliana, 463
Melika, 314
Melilla, 295, 372
Melleg, 109
Menaa, 297
Menelas, 14
Menerville, 268, 276
Menghug, Lake, 444
Meninx, 119, 127
Menzel, 143
Menzel Bu-ZaKa, 165
Menzel-el-Jemil, 185
Mequinez, 381
Merazig, 145
Merdes, 242
Merj, 10, 18
Mers-el-Kebir, 268, 288
Mers-el-Kerraz, 239
MeseUata, 42, 51, 62
Mesberia, 317
Mesbiya, 65
Mesida, 214, 240
Meskiana, 238
Messad, 309
Messaura, 442
Metalit, 133, 152
Metamer, 140
Metmi, 314
Metmata, 106, 140
Metz, 253
Meiirad, 221
Midia, 283
Miharo, 443
Miliana, 202, 279, 284
Miltsin, Moirnt, 351
Misda, 60
Misrata, Town, 61, 78
Misrata, Cape, 43
Missergbin, 213, 290
Mistir, 154
Mitija, 221
Mlila, 372
Mogador, 393
Mogbar Tabtani, 318
Mogbarba, 10
Mogod, 185
Moba, 290
Mobanunedia, 168
Mojabra, 26, 78
Moknin, 154
Mokta-el-Hadid, 244
Moluya River, 348, 357
Monastir, 154
Mondovi, 242
Mons Ater, 37
Moora, 14
Morris, 242
Mostaganem, 285
Mriminia, 401
Msabiha, 205
Msaken, 159
Mta-el-Grarra, 113
Muidir, 441
Mukblar, 55
Mukbtar, 22, 43
Mulai Dris, 383
Muluya, 357
Murzuk, 79
Murzuk, Hamada of, 72
Mustapba, 268
Muzaia, 206
Mzab, 50
Mzabites, 310
Mzi, 309
Nabel, 165
Naber-el-Jrug, 38
Nador (Nadbor), Mount, 283
Nafta Oasis, 147
Nafta 147
Nabr Wassel, 213, 282
Nail, 301
Natron Lake, 71
Nara, 297
Nasamon, 25, 415
Neapolis, 62, 165
Nedroma, 295
Nefet, 133
Nefzawa, 117, 133, 146
Oasis, 133
Negroes, 236, 369
Njeim (Bu), 59
Nekmaria, 282
Nememsba, 212
Nemours, 295
Ngucja, 314
NkbalFaraun, 117
Novi, 280
Nuail, 52, 106
Nmnidia, 245
Nmnidians, 230
Nun, Cape, 475
Nun, River, 396
Oea, 63
Ogulmin, 397
Okbab, 160
Onja, 424
Oppidum Tiagitei, 285
Oragbens, 448
Oran, 288
Orleansville, 285
Orpella, 51
Otba, Wadi, 80
Otba, Oasis, 75
Paladines, 249
Palestro, 267
Pantellaria Island, 105, 119
Peiion de Velez, 372
Pentapolis, 18
Pentbievre, 242
Perregaux, 286
Petit, 242
Philippe\'ille, 249
Pilau, 105
Pomaria, 290
Port-aux-Poules, 280
Porto-Farina, 122, 185
Portus Magnus, 287
Ptolemais, 19
Puerto-Cansado, 398
Rabat, 385
Radcs, 166
Rafta, 132
Rahmaniya, 339
Randon, 242
Rapsa, 92
Ras-Dukkera, 102
Ras-ed-Deir, 372 ~n
El-Abiod, 102
El-Ma, 331
El-Makbbas, 67
El-Melah, 5
Engela, 102
Ras-et-Tin, 514
SkLkda, 249
Rasbgun Island, 294
Rbat, 385 ,
Rdem, 383
Rebaias, 307
Rebeval, 266
Reginbat, 479
Remcbi, 294
Reteb, 402
Rballe, 91
Rbar-el-Melah, 185
Rbat, 90, 441
Town, 92
Kif, 354
Rigb, 306
Rio de Ore, 476
Rio Salado, 290
Rokma, 242
Rosario, 372
Roux, Cape, 102
Rovigo, 276
Ruagba, 306, 319, 364
Ruara, 221
Ruffasb, 249
Ruga, 152
Ruiba, 276
Rununel, 245
Rusgunia, 276 j
Rusicada, 249
Ruslikar, 249
Ruspina, 154
Saaduna, 249
Sabra, 161
Sabratba, 66
Saffi, 389
Safsaf, 18, 229, 249
Sabara, 413
Western, 471
Sabel, 158
Sahiya, 434
Saida, 286, 317
Saint Antoine, 249
Amaud, 249
Cbarles, 245, 249
Cloud, 288
Cyprien des Attaf, 284
Denis du Sig, 286
Donat, 249
Leu, 288
Sakiet-el-Homra, 396, 474
Sala, 385
Salda, 253
Saleb, 385
Sanbeja, 401
Santa-Cruz, 398
Saura, 454
Sba, 461
Sbeitla, 161
Scyllium, 161
Sebau, 208, 213
Sobarbbarb, 443
Sobdu, 206
Sebba, 72
Sebu, 353, 358
Seddada, 147
Ki
J )
J /•
' <
502
INDEX.
ScdratJi, 314
Sofni, 364, 381
Sojclmassa, 404
Sok'cta, 154
Scljimi, 173
Sehifict, 466
Semnu, 79
Scnusiva. 10, 309
Soptem Fratres, 355
Sfirat, 188
{>otif, 227, 252
S.vb.)iuse, 107, 212
Sfakes, 113, 149
Sfnuliia, 52 ^
Shaah. 212 '
Shaanba, 90. 314, 316
Shabet-el-Akra, 210
Shadelya-Derkawa, 339
Sharaba, 80
Shawiya, 230, 233, 363
Shel)ka, Fort, 314
Shebli, 276
Sheikh ben Abd-el-Kerim, 4G8
Shelif River, 213, 330
Sheliya, Mount, 207, 211
Sheikha, 364
Shellala, 319
Dahrani, 318
Guebli, 318 ,
_. Shenwa, 206, 278
% ' Sherf, River, 214
Shergmins, 480
Shershell, 259, 279
Sherwin, 458
Sheshawen, 373
Shiadma, 393
Shiifa, 206, 213, 277
Shikka-Benaria, 180
Shimedru, 435
Shinguiti, 481 ®
Shleuh, 364
Shorfa, 53
Shott ShergTii, 214
Shott-el-Gharsa, 118
Shott-el-Jerid, 116
Shott-el-Tejez, 115, 144
Faraun, 117
Gharbi, 214
Hodna, 215
Melghigh, 118, 215
Merwan, 217
Solium, 217
Si Ali Bu-Nu.ssiii, 104
Sidi Abdalla-ben-Jemal, 189
Ali-el-Mekki, 105
Amran Oasis, 220
Aomar, 460
Bel- Abbes, 286
Brahim, 295
Bu-Said, 170
El-Hani, 112, 161
Femish, 273, 274
Hesham, 397
Khaled, 309
MeUuk, 372
Mussa, 276
Naji, 296
Okba, 159, 303
Sidra. Gulf, 2
Sig Rivtr, 200, 213
Siga, 2!i5
Sig^,'«liin Oams, 434
Sinaun Oasis, 89
1 SirhLii, 31
Hirt, 50
Sitifi.H, 238
Siwah, 7», 424
Sliton, 61
Smeudu, 249
Soda Sherkiyah, 38
Gharbiya, 38
Sokna, 59
Soliman, 165
Soloum, Gulf, 4
Sort, 56
Spartel, 355
Staweli, 274
Stitten, 317
Stora, 202, 250
Strasbourg, 252
Suafa, 88, 171
Suasa, 133
Suf, 306
Sufasar, 284
Suffetula, 161
Suk, 143
Suk-Ahras, 108, 193, 238
Sukaya, 478
Bukhara, 180
Suk-el-Arba, 182
Suk-el-Jemaa, 196
Suk-el-Muluk, 401
Sus River, 348, 394
Susa, 156
Sweira, 393
Syracuse, 21
Syrtes, 121
Syrtis Major, 2
Tababor, Mount, 209, 252
Tabarka, 13, 102, 185
Tabelbelt, 460
Tabelkusa, 458
Tacapa, 143
Tademait, 439, 441
Tademakka, 132
Tadla, 388
Tafassasset, 469
Tafidet, 467
Tafilelt Oases, 402
Tafna, River, 204, 213
Tasjherut Pass, 351
Tagrart, 290
Tagura, 2^9
Tajakant, 477
Tajurah, 62
Tajemut, 308
Taiserbo, 29, 32
Taita, 91
Takdemt, 285
Takebrit, 295
Takitunt, 252
Takruna, 162
Taksebt, 266
Tamagrat, 400
Tamahag, 231
Tamarakuit, Mount, 348
Tamashek, 231
Tanoazight, 365
Tamontit, 467
Tamema Oasis, 303, 305
Tanuzzuft, 91, 472
Tangier, 375
Peninsula, 376
Tanrirt, 461
Tarabolos, 03
Tarf, 210
Turfawi, 148
Targui, 451
Tar-Hona, 41
Tarla, 407
Tarudant, 352, 395
Tabdili, 91, 438-9
Tarso, 424
Tatta Oasis, 401
Taudeni, 477
Taura, 239
Taurist, 455
Tawagha, 43
Taza, 378
Tazenakht, 401
Tebessa, 212, 237
Tebulba, 154
Teburba, 135
Teda, 429
Tefinagh, 233
Tehereta, Mount, 467
Tehessa, 109
Tejerri, 81
Tekertiba, 79
Tekna Oasis, 477
Tekut, Mount, 41
TeU, River, 477
TeU, 202, 296
Temassin, 220, 306
Temenhint, 79
Temissa, 80
Temim, 5, 165
Temrakesh, 390
Tenda, 264
Tenderart, 93
Tenduf, 477
Tenes, 279
Tenia Pass, 206
Teniet-el-Haad, 317
Tengik, 464
Tensift, 359
Tenushfi, Mount, 206
Termasson, 479
Tessawa Oasis, 80
Testur, 135
Tetuan, 373
Teushera, 19
Teveste, 237
Thala, 180
Thamugas, 300
Thapsus, 154
Thinae, 150
Thelepte, 148
Thera, 15
Thysdrus, 152
Tiarct, 203, 285
Tibesti, 424
Tibbu, 428
Tibili, 240
Tiddi, 249
Tidikelt, 462
Tidrarin, 480
Tifedert, 441
Tifesh, 239
Tighehert, 442
Tigri, 198,
Tihert, 285
Tijaniya, 136, 160, 308
Tijurarin, 457
Tikirt, 400
Tikzirt, 266
Tillulin, 461
Timbuktu, 331
Timegad, 300
Timici, 290
Timimun Oasis, 455, 457
Timmi, 401
Timissan, 462
Tin-Alkiun, 447
Tin-cr-Kuk, 458
Tinghert, 90, 441
Tinge, 375
Tinja, I?onzert, 107
Tiubhumau, 468
/
o o
«
\ 1
INDEX.
503
Tint, 215, 318
Tintaghoda, 466
Tintellust, 466
Tipasa, 239
Tipaza, 278
Tiris, 474
TisHt Oasis, 479
Tissent, 401
Titt, 462
Titteri Mountains, 206-7. 283
Tizgi, 398
'> xM Pass, 351
Tizilkum, 78, 447
Tizi'nt-er-Riut, 402
Tizi-Uzu, 264
Tiznit, 396
Tlelis, 290
Tlemcen, 290
Mountains, 290
Tobruk, 13
Todgha, 401
Todra, 401
Tokra, 19
Tolga, 305
Tolmitah, 19
Tozer Oasis, 147
Traghen, 76, 80
Trara, 204
' Trarza, 480
Tres Forcas, Cape, 354, 372
TrLk-esh-Jemel, 120
^ Tripoli, 60, 61, 63
Vecchio, 67
Tripolitana, 1
Triton, Lake, 22, 112
Trud, 307,
Tsabit Oasis, 461
Tsad, Lake, 434
Tu, 424
Tuareg, 17, 231, 438, 446
Azjar, 439
Tugurt, 306
TuilaMakna, 211
Tukut, 89
Tummo, Mount, 427
Txmes, 169
Tunis, 169, 170
Lake, 172
Gulf, 104
Tunisia, 95
Tunisians, 173
Turkos, 343
Turks, 53, 136
Tussideh, Mount, 425
Tuta, 242
Tuzzut, 299
Twat, 454
Uayat, 63
Ubari, 76, 79
TJbba, 242
Udan, 441
Udna, Udina, 168
Ughlana, 305
XJgraefe, 79
Ujda, 198, 370
Ujef, 481
Ukeit, Mount, 215
LTad Abdi, 233, 297
Ayar, 133
Blacja, 321
Bu-Sba, 477
Daud, 297
Delim, 470, 480
El-Asker, 230
Embarek, 479
Ulad-en-Nacer, 472
; Ulad-JeUal, 309]
Jerir, 404
Mahmud, 479
Nail, 309
E^iffa, 460
Riah, 282
Said, 132, 162
Sidi-Abid, 132
Sidi-esh-Sheikh, 316
Sidi-Yabia-ben-Thaleb, 237
TJm-el-Buagi, 240
Um-el-Tluur, 305
Um-er-Rbia, 351, 359
XJm-et-Tebul, 188, 240
XJrfila, 51
Urghamma Mountains, 106
Tribe, 132
Urlana, 221
Usa, 314
Ussalet, Mount, 113
UshteUa Mountains, 102, 128
TJted, 363
Utica, 122
Lake, 110
Vallee, 249
Villa Cisneros, 482
Volubilis, 383
"Wadai, 12, 26
Wadan (Sabara), 481
(Tunis), 59
"Wadikur, 433
"Wady Aberjush, 73
Beidha, 43
El-Ethal, 43
El-Ghasas, 42
El-Grin, 43
El-Kaan, 43
El-Mgbar, 43
Esb-Shegga, 43
Esb-Sherki, 72
Esh-Shiati, 70, 78
Fareg, 23
Segsao, 43
Sert, 41
Sufejrn, 52
Um-esb-Sheil, 43
Zemzem, 43
'Wagwerut,'460
Wabran, 288
Wajanga, 24, 26, 423
Wajili, 25
Walata, 479
"Walidiya, 389
Walili, 383
Wan Oasis, 69
Wan-el- Kebir, 74
Harir, 74
Namus, 57, 74
Wargla, 314
Warsenis, 204
Watelen, 441
Wed Ajerun, 213
Aissi, 207, 255
Assaka, 359
Atmenia, 249
Bagla, 112
Besbes, 242
Beyash, 148
Cabes, 118
Draa, 47, 345, 359, 399
Wed-el-Abiod, 297
Wed-el-Arab, 296
Wed-el-Fekka, 112
Wed-el-Fez 379
Wed-el-Gharbi, 215, 457
Wed-el-Ghas, 396
Wed-el-Halluf, 407
Wed-el-Kantara, 211, 303
Wed-el-Kebir, 102, 106, i213
Wed-el-IOius, 357, 377
Wed-es-Segguer, 215
Wed-es-Suk, 154
Wed-et-Tin, 106
Wed-et-Tinga, 107
Fodda, 285
Guers, 360
Guir, 360
Jeddi, 215, 307 ^
Jer, 277
Lua, 215
Marguelil, 112, 159
Maya, 314
Mazafran, 286
Melah (Algeria), 118
Melah (Tunis), 118
Melian, 104, 111
Melleg, 102. 180
Menfes, 112
Messaura, 455
Meurad, 278
Miya, 217, 306
Msif, 215
Mzab, 309, 314
Mzi, 215
Namus, 213, 318
Nun, 345, 396
Righ, 217, 305
Sahel, 202, 213
Saiu-a, 407, 419, 454
Sebau, 264
Segguer, 316, 457
Sherf, 372
Shibica, 398, 474
Suf, 306
Sus, 352, 359, 395
Sus (Sahara), 472
Tafassasset, 469
TeU, 477
Tensift, 353, 359
Usa, 314
Za, 372
Zeguid, 401
Zenati, 240
Zergim, 215, 457
Zis, 360, 401
Wersbefana, 52
Wezzan, 383
Wun Oasis, 433
Tahia-ben-Othman, 480
Yat Oasis, 434
Yeggeba Oasis, 434
Yebudia, 55
Yenni, 258
Yerikeh, 426, 433
Zaacha, 305
Zab Dahri, 304
Zab Guebli, 304
Zab Shergin, 303
Zaffarines Islands, 357, 372
Zafran, 44
Zaghwan, 104, 161, 166
Mount, 104, 167
Zahrezd-Gharbi, 302
Zaian, 385
Zakkar, 206
Zakkar-el-Gharbi, 284
Zalla Oasis, 57
Zana, 301
504
r
INDEX.
Zarai, 301
Zarfuwn, 256
Zarluim Mountains, 383
Zarada, 140
Zawya, 60
Zaw'va-ol-Itat, 33
Ziti'un, 267
Z. -rdii, 404
Z.'laf, 61
^olla Oasis, 37, .57
Zfiiibni, 105, 124
Zembrctta, 105
Zemmur, 385, 479
Zenaga, 363,/ 01
' Zcnata, 310, 401
Zinati, 240
Zenthau, 60
I Zciizur, 66
I Zera, 119
I Zerga, River, 110
Zorilfa, 281
Zerizer, 242
Zian, 140
Zibun, 211, 301
Zighen, 31, 79
Zilis, 377
Zima. 206
Zis, 402
Zoarah, 67
Zoghawa, 431
Zouaves. 195
Zraia, 301
ZuiLa, 80
Zurich, 280
Zusfana, 407
Zwa, 459
Zwawa, 255
Zwawia, 256
Zwila, 67
Zwiya (Cyrenaica), 10
(Kufra), 26, 32
t-
END OF VOL. I,
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